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BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
LITERATURE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
(Now ready) 


LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
In collaboration with Carl Everett Purinton 
(Now ready) 


In Preparation 
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF ISRAEL 


THE ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MASTER 
In collaboration with Sadie Brackett Costello 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


LITERATURE 
OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


wer 
By 
ohh es 








THE NEW TESTAMENT 


BY | 
HERBERT R. 'PURINTON 


PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE AND RELIGION 
IN BATES COLLEGE 


AND 


CARL EVERETT PURINTON 


FELLOW OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL ON 
RELIGION IN HIGHER EDUCATION 


NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1925 


Copyricut, 1925, py 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Printed in the United States of America 





PREFACE 


In trying to reproduce the historical background of 
the Bible there is always the danger that its docu- 
ments shall seem to belong to a past generation and 
not to the present. The books of our New Testament 
were written especially for men living within a century 
after the death of Jesus, and therefore more than 
eighteen hundred years ago. And even these books 
were written from several different points of view. 
What meaning can they have for us? 

The New Testament was written to tell about Jesus. 
And it is Jesus that modern readers of the Bible want 
to know. The example of his life and his ideals are 
more important than ever when other lights are failing. 

Men have always described Jesus in different ways. 
One day on the road with his disciples, Jesus asked 
them who people said he was. There were different 
answers that day. The letters, biographical narratives, 
all the books of the New Testament, are answers to this 
question, answers written by different men, at different 
times, under different circumstances, but all give a por- 
trait of Jesus and his solution for their problems. _ 

The answers of these writers about Jesus can be 
traced through several stages of development. The first 
stage was the time before the first of Paul’s letters was 
written. Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews. Followers 
of Jesus still attended the temple worship and the syna- 
gogue. 

But in the second period the Christian church began 
to break away from Judaism. Then, too, Paul the 

Vv 


vl PREFACE 


scholar talked about Jesus in terms of the schoolmaster. 
This was the beginning of doctrine. 

The final and complete separation between the Chris- 
tian and Jewish churches came with the destruction of 
Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A. D. A further devel- 
opment of church practices was only natural. And now, 
too, we find full-fledged biographies of Jesus. One was 
written by a well-to-do Greek physician, another by a 
trained Jewish writer; yet all portray the same Jesus 
and deliver his great conception of the Kingdom of God. 

A fourth period was that of the persecutions. In dan- 

ger of their lives, Christian leaders wrote tracts to en- 
courage their followers to endure hardship, all in the 
name of Jesus. 

Lastly came dangers from within, the heresies. It 
was necessary to settle disquieting arguments as to 
what Jesus was not by firm statements of what he was. 
More authority was placed in the hands of church 
leaders. Thus the new enemy was attacked. 

In the five different stages of development traced in 
the New Testament, we find the ideals of Jesus en- 
shrined in many different and changing forms, making 
it necessary to separate between what was changeable 
and what was permanent in the religious life of each 
generation. 

Yet it is the same Jesus that we find on all the pages 
of the book. The Jesus of Paul is the Jesus of the Gos- 
pels. The meek yet strong figure of the Master strides 
through the pages of the book from cover to cover. In 
every age and in every land men have sought and found 
him. He is still to be found to-day. 


Caru EvERETr PuRINTON. 
JERUSALEM, PALESTINE, 
April 21, 1925. 


iT 


II. 
III. 


XII. 


XIII. 
XIV. 
XV. 


CONTENTS 


PART 1 
THE ORAL PERIOD 
PAGE 
ee TG) Lae Vat WV TRA rs he ey Decay eae ee 

Te MAVEN Of SORUGEY air ce Abee Wile baat « 6 
Lhe: Deeds-08 J esusis. 2 c68. Bice wa Oa Lees. 12 

PART 2 

THE PERIOD OF PAUL 

The First New Testament Book................ 17 
The Magna Charta of Christianity............. 22 
A Picture of the First Great City Church....... 28 
Paul’s Struggle and Victory at Corinth.......... 34 
The Message to the World’s Capital............ 39 
pres: Prison Letters. so). 0 os is ees Cen hign 44 
Paul's Last bettors 8.0 8. oC A FS 50 

PART 3 

THE PERIOD OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 
A Comparison of the First Three Gospels....... 55 
The Life Story of the Author of the Gospel of 

BA AER i ce wale aa dlikre ate aiprurnhee hs aoe ahaa MORAN 60. 
The Gospel ‘of Marke) Oe sas ba eae 66. 
The Gospel of Matthew. .............0. 0000006 73. 
The Sermon on the Mount Ea ly HRSA A len a nd Cay 79 


vu 


Vill 


CHAPTER 


XVII. 
XVIII. 
XIX. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
The Parables of the Kingdom................ 89 
The <ospel OF Likes ei. eis ee ac ete sake 96 
Luke, the First Christian Artist.............. 105 
Pen-Pictures of the Early Church............. 111 
PART 4 
THE PERIOD OF PERSECUTION 
The Drama of Revelation................... 116 
An Oration on Loyalty..................0.0. 123 
A’ Message of Hope tio seat coe S cuee 129 
A Christian Critic....... bite | pat a alatg soca eae 136 
PART 5 
THE PERIOD OF THE BEGINNINGS OF HERESY 
The Fourth Gospel: Its Historical Setting and 
Purpobe 53 eae | ee eS ad, ea 1438 
Dramatic Presentation of the Gospel.......... 150 
The Gospel of the Living Christ.............. 159 
Three Letters of John: ......6.5 6.6 seg. e eee es 166 
The Letters to Timothy and Titus............ 172 


The Two Latest Books of the New Testament. 176 


181 


Part 1 
THE ORAL PERIOD 


CHAPTER I 
THE LIVING WORD 


1. Christianity Had No Sacred Book of Its Own. 


Jesus did not write a book. The only record that we 
have of his writing at all is that once upon a time he 
wrote on the sand. He depended upon the spoken word 
for the proclamation of his message. His disciples went 
forth ‘in a sort of breathless haste to tell the story.” 
They did not think of using the pen, because the time 
was short and because neither they nor their hearers 
were accustomed to books. These hearers who heard 
the good news of Jesus so gladly were uneducated men 
and women—fishermen, farmers, shepherds, and slaves. 

But this does not mean that books were not being 
written and read in the time of Jesus. In Jerusalem 
many of the upper classes had the Old Testament in 
Hebrew, which had already been translated into Greek. 
This translation is known as the Septuagint and con- 
tained, besides the thirty-nine books of the Old Testa- 
ment, the fourteen apocryphal books. Paul had books 
and showed in his later epistles that he had studied the 
Septuagint very carefully. As a boy in Tarsus he had 
either read the Greek poets himself or had been in- 
structed in them by his teachers, because he quotes 

1 


2 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


them in his speech at Athens. In the cities of the Ro- 
man Empire the higher classes of people were familiar 
with a wide range of literature, including Homer, Plato, 
Cicero, Virgil, and Horace. All this world of scholarship, 
however, was practically unknown to the common peo- 
ple of Palestine. They depended upon the living voice 
for their inspiration and instruction. 


2. Use of the Old Testament by Christians. 


While the early followers of Jesus had no purely 
Christian literature, they were all very familiar with 
the sacred books of the Jews, the Old Testament. In- 
deed, the first Christians were Jews and inherited the 
Jewish Bible. From it the early Christian preachers 
quoted passages to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was 
the long-expected Messiah. From it, also, came the 
suggestion in later years that Christianity, like Juda- 
ism, should have its sacred book, which in case of con- 
troversy could be quoted as authority. Only a few per- 
sons in the time of Jesus could read the Hebrew Bible, 
for Hebrew had become a dead language, and Aramaic 
had taken its place. Fewer people still could afford to 
own scrolls of the Law, Prophets, and Psalms. Copies of 
these would be found in the synagogues, where on the 
Sabbath the Hebrew would be translated into Aramaic 
for the benefit of the hearers, and on other days the 
older boys would study both the Hebrew and the oral 
law. 

When Paul wrote his letters to the church in the 
years 50 to 65, and when the Gospels were published 
a few years later, it was the custom to quote from the 
Septuagint rather than from the Hebrew. This is shown 
by the words and phrases in the New Testament which 
clearly follow the peculiarities of the Greek translation. 


THE LIVING WORD 3 


But few Christians would be able to read the Greek. 
They were ignorant alike of the Old Testament in He- 
brew and in Greek. They looked to something besides 
books for their inspiration and instruction. 


3. The Radiance of a Life. 


Jesus was the radiant centre of Christianity. Life 
and power and healing flowed from his presence. The 
story of the woman who touched the hem of his gar- 
ment and was healed is symbolical of his whole career. 
When Jesus spoke it was with “authority,” that is, 
with peculiar power. The people heard him gladly. He 
did not make long arguments based on ancient records; 
he did not quote authorities for this statement or that, 
but spoke from his heart. The common people heard 
him gladly; the crowds thronged about him for a touch 
of that new life. 

His first disciples carried the good news to others by 
word of mouth. Andrew won Peter; Peter converted 
three thousand; and the disciples, scattered by perse- 
cution, told the story of Jesus far and wide. It was like 
the ceremony of lighting the candles at the Church of 
the Holy Sepulchre. From the first the light spreads 
to all. From Jesus the joyous news of redemption ran 
through Palestine by the voice of happy believers. No 
letter of Paul was written within twenty years of the 
crucifixion, no Gospel within forty years, yet the 
churches multiplied everywhere through the power of 
the living voice. 


4. Jerusalem the Home of the Living Voice. 


After the resurrection of Jesus the disciples came to- 
gether in Jerusalem, and within a few weeks thousands 
were added to their membership (Acts 2:41; 4:4). 


4 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


For them the words of Jesus, although they were not 
yet written, became the chief authority. A church his- 
torian, writing at a later date (Papias, 130 A. D.), 
speaks of the fact that there in Jerusalem they can 
give “the living and abiding voice.” 

It was in Jerusalem that Peter and John at the Beau- 
tiful Gate of the Temple proclaimed the message of 
Jesus (Acts 3 and 4). There, also, Peter gave his great 
sermon on the day of Pentecost. In Jerusalem, too, 
James, the brother of Jesus, became the head of a 
great church and was recognized as qualified to speak 
the mind of Jesus. Until Paul, twenty years later, be- 
came the leader, all Christians looked to Jerusalem as 
the headquarters of the faith. And to this day Zion is 
the Holy City, because there the “living voice’’ first 
proclaimed the message of eternal life. 


5. Two Reasons Why the Gospels Were Not Written 
Earlier. 


Those who had heard Jesus had no need of a book 
to tell them what to do. His vivid personality, his 
memorable stories, and his example were ever before 
their minds. 

When, a little later, it might have seemed desirable 
to reduce Jesus’ words to writing, his followers were 
not interested in the project because they believed 
that before the end of their generation he would come 
again and bring the world to an end. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


1. How were the words of Jesus preserved? 
2. poet class of people did Jesus speak? Mark 1: 16-20; 


Oo orf & 


oF Whe 


THE LIVING WORD 5 


. What great book was familiar to the followers of Jesus? In 


what two languages was it published? 


. Give examples of the radiance of Jesus’ life. 
. What is the meaning of the “living and abiding voice”? 


Give examples. 


. Two reasons why the words of Jesus were not written down 


earlier. 


Oral Discussion 


. Were class distinctions as pronounced then as now? 
. What people among the Jews would be the best educated? 


What preyoReDs of the people was not able to read and 
write ? 


. What was the Septuagint? ’ 
. Were the early Christians correct in believing that Christ 


would come again to earth before the end of that genera- 
tion? 


Special Assignments 


. Find a passage in the book of Acts in which Paul quotes a 


Greek poet. 


. Write a list of the Aramaic words used by Jesus which are 


retained in the New Testament. Mark 5:41; 7:11; 7:34; 
14:36; 15: 34. 


CuHaptTer II 
THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 


1. A Discovery in Egypt. 


In the ruins of the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus, 
there was discovered in the year 1897 the tattered leaf 
of a papyrus book written in the second century. On 
this leaf were several sayings of Jesus, some of them 
identical with words of Jesus found in the New Testa- 
ment. One of these verses, although incomplete, ver- 
bally agrees with a well-known New Testament say- 
ing, “‘. . . and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out 
the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.”? Compare 
Matthew 7: 5. 

Other discoveries of this kind will probably be made 
in many parts of Egypt and Palestine, where the early 
Christians were teaching about Jesus and were making 
collections of his sayings to help them in their evan- 
gelistic work. This agrees with the opening sentence 
in the Gospel of Luke, “ Forasmuch as many have 
taken in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those 
matters which have been fulfilled among us... .” 

Henry van Dyke has made use of this discovery in 
his Towling of Felix. 


“But this word the Master said 
Long ago and far away, 
Silent and forgotten lay 
Buried with the silent dead, 
Where the sands of Egypt spread 
Sea-like, tawny billows heaping 
Over ancient cities sleeping, 

6 


THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 7 


While the river Nile between 

Rolls its summer flood of green, 

Rolls its autumn flood of red: 

There the word the Master said 
Written on a frail papyrus, wrinkled, scorched by fire and torn, 
Hidden by God’s hand was waiting for its resurrection morn.” 


2. How the Sayings of Jesus Were First Written. 


Imagine yourself with the crowd of people to whom 
Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount. They used the 
Aramaic language, and so the famous sayings of Jesus 
were reported in this tongue. When the disciples and 
other people went away from that place, they began to 
tell what Jesus had said. Everywhere they repeated 


the sayings of Jesus in this Aramaic language. It is well ; 
known that the Oriental peoples have a remarkable | 


memory. A little later it was a requirement of all can- 


didates for the Christian ministry that they be able to ! 


Pend 


repeat the Psalms from memory. It is not surprising, | 


then, that the very words of Jesus were accurately 
quoted year after year. 

As time went on, many of those who had heard Jesus 
speak died. The question arose how should these say- 
ings of the Master be handed down to the next genera- 
tion. The result was that in many different parts of 
Palestine the words of Jesus were written down in 
Aramaic. An evidence that Aramaic was the language 
Jesus used is seen in such verses as Mark 14: 36, where 
the Aramaic abba is used for the Greek father. It is 
reported by Papias, a bishop of Asia Minor, that the 
apostle Matthew made a collection of these Aramaic 
sayings of Jesus. This group of sayings has usually 
been referred to as the Logia. Papias said: ‘‘So then 
Matthew composed the Logia in the Hebrew language, 
and every one interpreted them as he was able.”” When 
Papias said “Hebrew,” he meant Aramaic, which was 


si 


8 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


the current dialect. This collection was probably made 
about the year 50 A. D. 


3. Why the Sayings of Jesus Were Translated into 
Greek. 

As the disciples of Jesus carried his 3 message to Sa- 
maria, Galilee, and to the more distant regions of 
Syria and Egypt, they would meet people who could 
not understand the Aramaic. They would be com- 
pelled, therefore, to translate the sayings of Jesus into 
the Greek language, which was the universal tongue of 


. the time. In John 12:20, 21, we read that certain 


Greeks said, ‘‘We would see Jesus.” The story of 
Jesus would have to be told to them, of course, in 
Greek. 

In this oral period of Christianity, then, we are to 
think of the words of Jesus as being repeated by ‘the 
living voice” in two languages, and while the gospel 
was being spread largely by the spoken word, yet here 
and there men were writing down the sayings of Jesus 
in both Greek and Aramaic. 


4. The Final Process by Which the Sayings of Jesus 
Became a Part of Our Present Gospels. 


Only a few of the sayings of Jesus have been recov- 
ered from the sands of Egypt, but in the Gospels of 
Matthew and Luke we find more than two hundred of 
them preserved in a beautiful form. Matthew, chap- 
ters 5-7, and Luke 6: 20-49, contain groups of these 
sayings, and many of those in Luke are parallel to those 
in Matthew. 

If one would understand how these sayings came to 
find a place in these two Gospels, he should try the ex- 
periment of tracing the life history of the Beatitudes, 


THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 9 


as follows: Jesus spoke them in Aramaic; his hearers 
repeated them and later reduced them to writing; when 
the disciples of Jesus sought to convert the Greek- 
speaking peoples, they transposed these Beatitudes into 
oral Greek and finally into written Greek. 

Thirty or forty years later, when the Gospels were 
written, the Beatitudes were found in circulation in 
more than one form. An example of this is found in 
Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.””. Luke 
chose another form (6:20), “Blessed are ye poor.” 
This is most interesting evidence of the existence of 
many groups of the sayings of Jesus before our present 
Gospels were written. While the sayings in the differ- 
ent groups were often verbally alike, yet the existence 
of such differences as we see in the first Beatitude indi- 
cates that they did not lay great stress on verbal accu- 
racy. 

The Lord’s Prayer (Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 
11: 2-4) is another example of the indifference of the 
early followers of Jesus with respect to the exact form 
of his words. This prayer, also, like the Beatitudes, 
shows that Jesus spoke in a rhythmical style that ap- 
proached poetry. This made it both pleasant to repeat 
and easy to remember. The Beatitudes illustrate this 
nicely. They fall into the regular form of Hebrew par- 
allelism: 


Blessed are the poor in spirit: 
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 


The Lord’s Prayer is more complex and is patterned 
after the envelope figure in Hebrew poetry of which 
we have a good example in Psalm 8. 


Our Father which art in heaven: 
Hallowed be thy name; 


10 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Thy kingdom come, 
Thy will be done, 
As in heaven, so on earth. 


5. The Religious Message. 


When we read these Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, 
and the wonderful short stories of Jesus, we are not 
surprised to learn that his religion made rapid progress 
among the people. His joyous view of the loving heav- 
enly Father was described in simple language that 
stood in contrast with the difficult philosophy of the 
Greeks. Jesus also taught that any person could ap- 
proach the Father directly, without the intervention of 
money-loving priests or elaborate temple ceremonial. 
He also presented his lofty moral ideals in such simple 
language that his meaning was plain to all. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. How do we know that there were earlier forms of the teach- 
ings of Jesus than our present Gospels? 

. Why were the sayings written down at that time? 

. What Lge es have we that they were first written in Ara- 
maic? 

. What need arose for translating the words of Jesus into 
Greek? 

. Show that one saying of Jesus was repeated in different forms. 


ao -. WN = 


Oral Discussion 


1. Discuss the probabilities for and Sip ie discovering other 
words of Jesus in Palestine and E 

2. In promoting a cause, Aboot is the “Ate efficient, a living 
messenger or a book? 

3. Which form of the first Beatitude did Jesus himself use? 


Special Assignments 


1. Study and read aloud to the class the most interesting section 
of Henry van Dyke’s poem, The Toiling of Feliz. 

2. Write a brief essay on the influence of Alexander the Great 
in making the Greek a world language. 


THE SAYINGS OF JESUS 11 


3. Write out the Lord’s Prayer as given by Matthew and Luke 
in parallel columns and underline the differences in red. 

4, Make a list of three sayings of Jesus found in Egypt which 
do not occur in the Gospels. Barton, Archeology and the 
Bible, 428-431. 


CuHapTer III] 
THE DEEDS OF JESUS 


1. The Threefold Preparation for the Gospels. 


In this oral period of Christianity, before any of our 
New Testament books were written, three processes 
were being carried on which resulted in the New Tes- 
tament. First, the eye-witnesses of Jesus’ deeds were 
repeating what he had done. They had organized 
themselves into a church and established the belief in 
Jesus as the Messiah and in the Resurrection, and by 
the use of the forms of baptism and the Lord’s Supper 
they kept in mind clearly their experience with Jesus. 
These facts and beliefs were handed down from gen- 
eration to generation by the living voice. Second, the | 
sayings of Jesus had been remarkably preserved in the 
memories of men and were being collected for later use 
in the Gospels. Third, we have now to consider how the 
stories about Jesus which we find so picturesquely told 
in the Gospel of Mark were preserved. 


2. The Sayings of Jesus and the Sayings about 
Jesus. 


Bishop Papias in Asia Minor, who reported to us the 
tradition that Matthew wrote the sayings of Jesus, 
has preserved for us another interesting story: 


Mark, who was Peter’s interpreter, wrote down accurately, 
though not in order, all that he recollected of what Christ 
had said or done. For he was not a hearer of the Lord nor 
a follower of his; he followed Peter, as I have said, at a 


12 


THE DEEDS OF JESUS 13 


later date, and Peter adapted his instructions to practical 
needs, without any attempt to give the Lord’s words sys- 
tematically. 


This description of the deeds of Jesus was written 
probably in the city of Rome. The disciples of Jesus 
were spreading his gospel all over the world. Before 
the Gospel of Mark was written, there were Christian 
churches in Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Corinth, 
Rome, and many other cities. In each of these places 
stories about Jesus were being repeated by local Chris- 
tian workers. So far as our information goes, the only 
city in which the gospel story was written down was 
Rome. 

It seems strange that in the city of Rome the first 
record of Jesus’ deeds should be made. Yet it may be 
accounted for by three facts: Rome was the recognized 
centre of the world; from it radiated roads that touched 
- remote provinces; so the Christians there would see 
the opportunity and feel the obligation of perpetuating 
and promoting the gospel of Jesus. Also, Paul had died 
there, and the memory of his work must have had a 
strong influence on the church. Again, Peter as the 
only eye-witness in Rome of the events in Jesus’ life 
would naturally take measures to preserve the stories 
of Jesus’ deeds which he had been repeating. This 
makes it easy to believe that Mark, who had been 
Peter’s assistant in the great metropolis, wrote as accu- 
rately as possible all that he could remember of Peter’s 
preaching about Jesus. 

It is important to remember why we have so few 
facts from the life of Jesus. The explanation is that 
these stories which Mark gathered together were only 
those incidents in the life of Jesus which the preachers 
told for evangelistic purposes. These stories, as now 


14 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


preserved in the Gospel of Mark, show their fitness for 
use in converting people to believe in Jesus. Each 
story is accompanied by a verse or two of exhortation. 
An example may be found in Mark 2: 23-27, where 
Jesus is pictured as disregarding the strict Sabbath 
laws of the Jews, and then the principle which the 
story illustrates is stated, “The Sabbath was made for 
man.” 


3. The Broken String of Pearls. 


This picture of Jesus eating the wheat and of David 
taking the forbidden bread is one of many in Mark. 
This has led some one to compare the gospel to ‘‘a string 
of pearls, of which the string has been broken, and the 
pearls all scattered.””’ The truth of the comparison 
will be seen if one makes a list of the word pictures 
in the third chapter of Mark. There four scenes follow 
one another in rapid succession, each one accompanied 
by an important statement or deed or general princi- 
ple of conduct. When we come to the other Gospels, 
we shall be troubled by many gaps in the narratives 
and by a lack of order in the stories about Jesus. The 
followers of Jesus hesitated to put his message into 
fixed form. They had perhaps seen so much abuse of 
the law of Moses that they did not want a second law 
for the scribes to twist and pervert, or they instinc- 
tively shrank from the danger of losing the spirit of 
Christ in a written document. They knew that Jesus 
did not write, and none of them had heard Jesus ask 
his disciples to write about him. A passage from Dry- 
den well describes this situation: 


“He could have writ himself, but well foresaw 
The event would be like that of Moses’ Law; 


THE DEEDS OF JESUS 15 


No written laws could be so plain, so pure, 
But wit may gloss and malice may obscure. 


At any rate, there is no doubt that very many inci- 
dents in the life of Jesus have been lost, but we ought 
to be thankful that so many pearls have been pre- 
served, If in other cities where Jesus was preached 
there had been reporters like Mark, we should have 
had a fuller account of the life of Jesus. 


4. Mark and Peter. 

Picture the scene of Peter’s preaching in Rome. He 
speaks Aramaic, while his audience understands Greek. 
His situation is like that of a missionary from America 
who is addressing an audience in Tokio. He must have 
an interpreter. John Mark, who later wrote the gospel, 
repeats every Aramaic sentence of Peter in the Greek 
language, for Greek was commonly spoken in all the 
great cities of the world. After Peter’s death, Mark 
wrote down many of the things that Peter had said 
and put them into his Gospel. : 


5. Religious Thought. 

Had not the followers of Jesus been zealous to win 
converts, we should never have had the Gospels; for, 
while the first three Gospels do not state their purpose, 
yet they were written with the aim that moved the 
author of the fourth Gospel, “These are written that 
ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of 
God; and that believing ye may have life in his name” 
(John 20: 30). 


16 


Oo - GC bd 


LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What threefold preparation was made for our New Testa- 


ment in this dimly known period before the first New 
Testament book was written? 


. What nearly contemporary testimony have we concerning 


Mark as a writer? 


. Why is it that we do not have a connected story of the life of 


Jesus from Peter? 


. What do we mean by comparing the Gospel of Mark to a 


string of pearls? 


. Name four of these pearls or pictures in Mark 3. 


Oral Discussion 


. Did the New Testament create the church, or the church the 


New Testament? Show how the attempt to win converts 
to Christ led to the writing of the New Testament. 


. Give some reasons why the first record of Jesus’ deeds was 


written in Rome. 


. Discuss the question whether we have enough facts about 


Jesus to prove him an historical character. 
Who had more influence in the making of the New Testament, 
Mark or Peter? 


Special Assignments 


. Write a sketch of Bishop Papias, showing how he might have 


been well informed about the work of Mark and Peter. 
(See a dictionary of the Bible.) 


. Were there Christians in Rome before the time of Paul? 
. Write a sketch of Peter, noting especially the times and places 


of his contact with Mark. 


Part 2 
THE PERIOD OF PAUL 


CHAPTER IV 
THE FIRST NEW TESTAMENT BOOK 


1. The Transition from the Spoken to the Written 
Word. 


The great Christian missionary Paul, “the most 
prominent figure of all the great men who have adorned, 
or advanced the interests of, the Christian Church,” 
was the first one to resort to writing to propagate 
Christianity. It is convenient to regard him as the 
one who put an end to the oral period, for it was more 
than twenty years after Paul wrote I Thessalonians 
that our earliest Gospel was written. 

It should be remembered that Paul had no idea, 
however, of writing letters which would later be col- 
lected together as part of the sacred book of the Chris- 
tians. His epistles were purely incidental to his work 
aS a missionary. When a difficulty arose in one of 
Paul’s churches and he was not able to attend to the 
matter in person, he was accustomed to send a letter 
to the church without having given any special atten- 
tion to the literary form of that letter. 

It is interesting to compare Jesus and Paul with Soc- 
rates and Plato. Socrates talked to a few friends in 

17 


18 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Athens, and because Plato wrote out his sayings, peo- 
ple of all nations can still listen to him. Jesus never 
went a hundred miles from his home, yet because Paul 
wrote about Jesus, all the world knows about him, and 
his religion became cosmopolitan. 


2. Letter-Writing in the Ancient World. 


The custom of writing letters, both formal and in- 
formal, was common in the Roman Empire. The let- 
ters of thirty-one different Latin authors have been 
preserved. It is interesting to compare the letters of 
Paul with those of Cicero. Cicero’s letter on the death 
of his daughter to his friend Servius Rufus may be 
compared with Paul’s epistle to Philemon, and his let- 
ter on Sczpio’s Dream is somewhat parallel to Paul’s 
letter to the Romans. As Cicero regarded Scipio’s 
Dream as his masterpiece, so Paul doubtless regarded 
Romans as his chief work. Thus Paul had before him 
many excellent examples of letter-writing when he pro- 
duced that first letter to the Thessalonians which in 
time proved to be the oldest sacred document of the 
Christian church. Of all the letters from that ancient 
world, none have proved so interesting and important 
as those of Paul. 


3. The Scene. 


We shall understand our New Testament better if 
we try to think ourselves back nineteen hundred years 
and imagine that we are in a house in Corinth. Paul 
was the guest of Gaius, who had recently been con- 
verted to Christianity. While he was being entertained 
there, Timothy came to him from Thessalonica with 
some news from the church that Paul had founded a 
few months before. Two matters needed attention at 


THE FIRST NEW TESTAMENT BOOK 19 


once, so Paul called for a scribe and dictated to him 
this historic little document. 

The scribe’s name was probably Tertius (Romans 
16 : 22), and he brought with him his writing-material, 
consisting of a reed pen and a bottle of brown ink and 
some leaves of papyrus, from which we get our word 
“naper.”’ This was made by pressing together the 
tape-like strips of the pith of the papyrus-plant, which 
formed a writing material not unlike birch bark. 

As Paul dictated this message to the church at Thes- 
salonica, he doubtless walked restlessly back and forth 
across the room. We shall select two items for study 
in this letter. 


4. The Two Main Points of I Thessalonians. 


Paul’s letters usually had an introduction and a 
conclusion and three or more main points. We shall 
study the form of these letters later and now deal only 
with the two chief messages to Thessalonica. First, he 
had to comfort these new converts because of the per- | 
secution they suffered from their Greek and Jewish | 
neighbors. Second, he had to explain why Christ had / 
not come again from heaven as soon as they had an- 
ticipated. Read I Thessalonians 4: 13-18 and note 
that Paul directly answers the question concerning the 
fate of those who had died before the return of Christ 
from heaven. He said that the dead would be raised 
when Christ appeared and that with the living they 
would be assembled together in the presence of Christ. 

It is noteworthy that this letter and all the others 
of Paul were written in view of some immediate need, 
so that we are dependent upon a knowledge of the his- 
torical background for a full understanding of the 
Apostle’s writings. 


20 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


5. II Thessalonians. 


In the year 50 A. D., two or three months after the 
first letter was written, a report came to Paul in Cor- 
inth that the church-members had misunderstood his 
teaching concerning the second coming of Christ and 
that they had stopped working (II Thessalonians 3 : 10). 
So Paul dictated this second, shorter letter, to correct 
their view concerning the coming of Christ and the 
end of the world. Read II Thessalonians 2: 1-3: 15. 
Paul here teaches that Jesus will not return so soon as 
they think. His coming is postponed until after some 
later, vague, historical event (2:3). 


6. The Religious Importance. 


From the crucifixion of Jesus to 50 A. D., the time 
of the writing of Paul’s first letter, there was no writ- 
ten record of what the church did or what the church 
believed. I Thessalonians, then, is a document of first- 
rate importance for both history and doctrine. It is 
evidently the substance of what Paul was preaching, 
and it contains a remarkable number of words and 
phrases which had evidently come to bear a peculiar 
meaning for the Christians. Also it contains state- 
ments about Jesus that appeared in writing for the 
first time. 

When taken together with II Thessalonians, this let- 
ter suggests an important thought in connection with 
the second coming of Christ. It teaches that the best 
way to prepare for this coming is to do our daily task 
with patience and not to be disappointed if Christ de- 
lays his return (II Thessalonians 3: 7-15). 


‘Every toiler in the quarry, every builder on the shore, 
Every chopper in the palm-grove, every raftsman at the oar, 


THE FIRST NEW TESTAMENT BOOK 2) 


Hewing wood and drawing water, splitting stones and cleaving 


sod, 
All the dusty ranks of labor, in the regiment of God, 
March together toward his triumph, do the task His hands pre- 


pare: 


Honest toil is holy service; faithful work is praise and prayer.” 


Om G hw -& OuRCWh & 


mem Che 


—The Toiling of Felix, Henry van Dyke. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. How long after the crucifixion of Jesus was it before the first 


New Testament book was written? 


. Why did Paul write letters? 

. What was the occasion of I Thessalonians? 

. Why did Paul write II Thessalonians? 

. Name two of the reasons why these two letters are very im- 


portant to the Christian church. 


Oral Discussion 


. Was Paul practical in his method of dealing with the second 


coming? IL Thessalonians 2: 1-3 and 3: 10. 


. Which was more important to Christianity, Jesus or Paul? 


Give a reason for your answer. 


. Discuss the question why Paul’s letters are more widely read 


than Cicero’s. 


. Tell the story of the writing of I Thessalonians. 
. What are a half-dozen facts about Jesus in I Thessalonians 


that can be found in no earlier document? 


Special Assignments 


. Write the substance of I Thessalonians in 150 words. 
. Write the substance of II Thessalonians in 175 words. 
. Read an outline of one of Cicero’s letters to the class and 


state one difference in style between Cicero and Paul. 


. Describe the method and materials of writing in the time of 


Paul. Look up the word “papyrus.” 


CHAPTER V 


THE MAGNA CHARTA OF CHRISTIANITY 


The Personal Experience of Feu Underlying this Letter. Ga- 
latians 1:15, 16; Acts 9: 

The New Religion ‘and the Ou Galatians 3: 1-14; 23-29. 

Results of the New Religion. Galatians 5: 22-24. 


1. Setting of Galatians. 


In the spring of 52 A. D., about a year after Paul 
wrote the letter to the Thessalonians, he left Corinth 
and journeyed to Antioch in Syria, a town well known 
because there believers were first called Christians. 
There, we may believe, he went to the home of an old 
friend, a Greek merchant, for rest and recuperation. 
This merchant was a wholesale dealer and had agents 
travelling all over Asia Minor and near-by territories. 
One day a salesman of his arrived at Antioch from the 
region of the Galatian churches which Paul had found- 
ed. He brought bad news for Paul. Enemies were 
working against him among the Christians in Galatia. 
Paul’s host hesitated to convey the bad news to him, 
but finally did so. Paul was greatly agitated. Imme- 
diately he sent for a scribe and dictated what has been 
called his most vigorous and emphatic letter—that to 
the Galatians. 


2. Literary Form. 


A good literary style involves two things, ideas and 
expression of those ideas. Paul’s ideas are among the 
greatest the world has ever known, but his expression 

22 


THE MAGNA CHARTA OF CHRISTIANITY 23 


of them, while it is direct and forcible, is not so formal 
and elaborate as that of the best writers of his time. 
A letter-writer like William James gives delight to a 
select class of readers by a wide range of allusions, 
witty sayings, and happy turns of speech. But Paul 
was not writing to the literary class. His readers were 
the common people, although educated men have not 
failed to find great satisfaction in them. Miss Wild, 
in her Literary Guide to the Bible, says: ‘‘We do not go 
to Paul’s letters for entertainment and rest. They are 
so strenuous with moral purpose that if we are very 
weary, we had better not undertake them. He does 
indeed strike fire, he even scintillates, but he does not 
go out of his way to show his familiarity with the 
learning of the day.” 

The letter to the Galatians is a good example of 
Paul’s method. He always has a good introduction 
and conclusion. In this letter, however, these are un- 
usually brief because at the time he wrote he was very 
indignant and wrote with much more vehemence than 
usual. 

A convenient analysis is as follows: 

Greeting, 1: 1-5. 

I. Paul’s Personal Experience, 1: 6-2: 21. 

II. Doctrinal Discussion, chapters 3, 4. 

III. Moral Exhortation, 5: 1-6: 16. 

Conclusion, 6:17, 18. 


3. The Personal Experience of Paul Underlying This 
Letter. 


The first step toward the understanding of Galatians 
is a knowledge of Paul’s career and of his personality. 
A sketch of Paul’s career shows that he was first of all 
in a liberal atmosphere in Tarsus, the place of his 


24 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


birth. During his college course in Jerusalem he was 
under a conservative influence, yet his teacher, Gama- 
liel, was a very broad-minded man. A little later when 
he became a member of the Sanhedrin, he was sur- 
rounded by Jews who were almost all conservative. 
When he saw what havoc the Christians were making 
of the old Jewish religion, he became the leader of 
those who were persecuting them. At Damascus Jesus 
suddenly revealed himself to Paul and entirely changed 
the course of his career. In the words of Tennyson, 
““God’s glory smote him in the face.” In this letter 
Paul claims that te got his thought about Jesus and 
his whole Christian belief straight from heaven. This 
accounts for the intensity with which he opposed those 
who had been teaching a different view. 


4. A Progressive Religion. 


The chief task of Paul’s life was to free the religion 
of Jesus from all entanglements with the old Jewish 
faith. The conservatives felt that they ought to retain 
circumcision and several of the other forms of the Old 
Testament church. Paul perceived that Christianity 
was for people of all races and that it was absolutely 
free from any peculiar form. So he was greatly dis- 
turbed when he found that some Jewish teachers were 
telling his people that they could not be saved unless 
they obeyed the law of Moses. So indignant was Paul 
that he used very strong expressions, ‘‘O senseless 
Galatians, who has bewitched you—!” The word 
“‘bewitch”’ expresses the height of their folly. It is as 
if the Christians had been charmed by a magician, by 
the ‘evil eye,” as a bird is fascinated by a serpent. 

This contention between the progressives and con- 
servatives was the great battle of Paul’s life. More 


THE MAGNA CHARTA OF CHRISTIANITY 25 


than any other man of his time, he saw the importance 
of freeing Christianity from all Jewish forms. Should he 
admit that the Jews had any peculiar rights over the 
gospel, then universal religion was at an end. “Ye 
observe days, and months, and seasons, and years” 
(Galatians 4:10). Paul would agree with the modern 
writer Rauschenbusch, who declares that ‘Religion 
in the past has always spent a large proportion of its 
force on doings that were apart from the real business 
of life, on sacrificing, on endless prayers, on travelling 
to Mecca, Jerusalem, or Rome, on kissing sacred stones, 
bathing in sacred rivers, climbing sacred stairs, and a 
thousand things that had at best only an indirect bear- 
ing on the practical social relations between men and 
their fellows.” 


5. The Permanent Message of Galatians. 


In Galatians 5: 22 Paul explains the religion of Jesus 
as purely spiritual, and in 5:1 he tells us to “stand 
fast”’ in this spiritual freedom. It was Galatians which 
inspired Martin Luther to break away from the formal 
and immoral system of the church of the Middle Ages, 
and Galatians still warns us against depending upon 
any external means of salvation. 

The message of this letter is that every one is saved 
by faith alone, that is, by a childlike attitude of trust 
in God. As Jesus was a good son of the Father in — 
heaven, we also are to be loving, obedient children. 
This produces not Pharisees who pride themselves on 
having kept certain forms, but rather humble followers 
of Jesus who are loving, joyous, kind, and willing to 
be taught. 

Trust in God and service to man sum up the religion 
of Paul as we find it in Galatians. Men show that they 


26 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


do really have faith in God by their love for men. 
Longfellow, in his Legend Beautiful, teaches that the 
formal requirements of the church may not be sub- 
stituted for the kindly deeds which men need at our 
hands. The monk thought that he would lose the 
vision of Christ if he left the cell where he was praying 
and went out to feed the poor at the monastery gate, 
but, on returning to the chamber, 


“He paused with awe-struck feeling 
At the threshold of his door, 
For the Vision still was standing 
As he left it there before, 
When the convent bell appalling, 
From its belfry calling, calling, 
Summoned him to feed the poor. 
Through the long hour intervening 
It had waited his return, 
And he felt his bosom burn, 
Comprehending all the meaning, 
When the Blessed Vision said, 
‘Hadst thou stayed, I must have fled!’”’ 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Why was Galatians written? 

. What are the three main sections of the letter? 

. Quote a verse from chapter 1 which shows the source of Paul’s 
authority. 

. What was the chief task of Paul’s life? 

} sty @ verse in chapter 3 which best explains Paul’s new re- 

igion. 
. In what sense is Galatians the Magna Charta of Christianity ? 


Oo ne Choe 


Oral Discussion 


1. When Paul says that the gospel came to him “through reve- 
lation of Jesus,”” what does he mean? 

2. Did Feus show a Christian spirit in the third chapter of Gala- 
tians ? 

3. What discussion in Jerusalem had prepared Paul for this 
crisis in Galatia? Acts 15. 


THE MAGNA CHARTA OF CHRISTIANITY rif 


Special Assignments 


1. Write a list of the words or phrases in Galatians which show 
that Paul was indignant. 

2. To what experiences in his life does Paul refer in the expres- 
sion, ‘‘marks of the Lord Jesus,’ in Galatians 6:17? Com- 
pare Acts 14:19; 16: 22, 23; II Corinthians 11: 24, 25. 

3. Explain what is meant by the phrase “filial attitude,’ ’ Which 
rae seems to regard as the most important, thing in reli- 


4, Tell ie story of Longfellow’s Legend Beautiful. 


CHAPTER VI 


A PICTURE OF THE FIRST GREAT CITY 
CHURCH 


Fragments of a aa Letter. I Corinthians 5: 9-13; II Corin- 
thians 6: 14-7 

The One TodnAaton. I Corinthians 3 : 10-23. 

Giving Way in Non-Essentials. I Corinthians 8. 

The Hymn of Love. I Corinthians 13. 


1. Lost Letters. 


During the twenty years of Paul’s active career as a 
missionary he probably wrote hundreds of letters. The 
New Testament preserves only ten from his pen. Let- 
ters were more frequently lost in ancient times than 
now, because there was no regular mail system. An 
example of the fact that letters were often lost is found 
in the common custom of sending letters in duplicate. 

Moreover, if a letter reached its destination safely, 
even though it were a letter of a great Apostle like Paul, 
it would not long be preserved. The Christian churches 
that received Paul’s letters had no idea that they 
would constitute a part of a New Testament. Further- 
more, the papyrus on which the letters were written 
was dry and fragile and would not last more than a 
few months if it was being used by the church. In the 
case of many letters it would not be thought necessary 
to make copies since they dealt with incidental mat- 
ters. 

This accounts for the loss of a part of Paul’s corre- 
spondence with the church of Corinth. One of these 

28 


A PICTURE OF THE FIRST GREAT CITY CHURCH 29 


lost letters seems to be preserved in part in I Corin- 
thians 5:9-13 and II Corinthians 6: 14-7:1. If one 
reads II Corinthians 6: 11-13 and attaches directly to 
it the second verse of the seventh chapter, he does not 
discover any gap in the thought by the omission of 
6: 14-7:1. This is an evidence that the passage origi- 
nally belonged elsewhere. It is a happy conjecture 
that these verses taken together with I Corinthians 
5:9-13 were in the first letter. As a matter of fact, 
they do connect with the situation in Corinth. It is 
better to speak of four letters to Corinth rather than 
two, since each of these four letters represents a dis- 
tinct historical situation in the church. In that case 
the order and extent of the letters would be as follows: 

1. The Lost Letter. I Corinthians 5: 9-13; II Co- 

rinthians 6: 14-7: 1. 

2. I Corinthians 1-16 (except 5: 9-13). 

3. II Corinthians 10-13. 

4. II Corinthians 1-9 (except 6: 14-7: 1). 


2. The Setting of I Corinthians. 


Three or four years before the writing of I Corin- 
thians, Paul had founded a Christian church in Cor- 
inth, the greatest metropolis of Greece. He was now 
preaching in Ephesus, a sail of only a few hours from 
Corinth. Both cities were important commercial cen- 
tres and intercourse between them was very frequent. 
Paul had letters from Corinth, and sometimes messen- 
gers came to him from that church. One day while he 
was working at his trade of tent-making in Ephesus 
with Aquila and Priscilla, he received a letter reporting 
a case of immorality in the church at Corinth. 

We must remember that the city of Corinth was 
notorious throughout Europe as a centre of luxury and 


30 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


vice. The temples to the Greek gods and goddesses 
were places of immorality. The slaves outnumbered 
all the rest of the population, and slavery is always a 
source of corruption. Another cause of degeneracy was 
the multitude of mixed people passing through the 
port of Corinth every year. So we can understand 
why the church had to appeal to Paul very often with 
reference to the conduct of its members. 

In I Corinthians 5:9 Paul refers to an earlier letter 
which has not been preserved, with the exception of 
the fragments mentioned above. Questions kept com- 
ing to him in letters and by messengers concerning im- 
portant matters in the church (7:1; 8:1; 12:1). Our 
present letter called I Corinthians was written in an- 
swer to these questions. It is regarded as one of the 
most important historical documents ever written, be- 
cause it is a contemporary record of definite events in 
the city and church of Corinth in the first century 
A. D. Some one has said that I Corinthians takes the 
roof off the meeting-house and gives us a glimpse of a 
primitive church programme and an understanding of 
the character of the members. 


3. Uniting on Jesus. 

As in our day, there were exciting controversies over 
doctrine in the early Christian church. At Corinth, for 
example, there was one group that favored Peter’s in- 
terpretation of Christianity. They were inclined to 
observe some of the Jewish forms. Another group 
stood by Paul’s original doctrine. They believed in a 
Christianity free from all the ancient religious cere- 
monies. Others were of the party of Apollos, the elo- 
quent Alexandrian Jew. These favored a philosophic 
type of Christianity. Paul gave the remedy by re- 


A PICTURE OP THE FIRST GREAT CITY CHURCH 31 


minding these parties that they all agreed on one thing, 
namely, that Christ was the one foundation for all. 
Why quarrel, then? Why not proceed to build the 
great cathedral of the faith, letting each person and 
each group fill its own place in the building? Why not 
recognize that they all belong to Christ and that 
Christ belongs to God (3 : 21-23)? 

These controversies have their counterpart in our 
churches to-day. One denomination competes with 
another, and within a single denomination faction op- 
poses faction, and there is a great loss of energy which 
should be used for the building of the Kingdom of God. 


4. Giving Way in Non-Essentials. 

A curious controversy arose in Corinth over the cus- 
tom of buying meat in the market-place. When a lamb 
was sacrificed to Apollo, only certain parts would be 
used in the temple, and the remainder would be sold 
for food. To some Christians it seemed a sin to eat 
meat which had thus been connected with the worship 
of idols. Paul advised them not to eat of such meat if 
their conscience forbade. But he hastened to say that 
in reality such meat was not a whit inferior to any 
other. The Mohammedan Bible is less liberal on this 
point. Sura II, paragraph 168, says: “That (flesh) over 
which any other name than that of God hath been in- 
voked is forbidden you.” 

In the course of this discussion Paul made a remark 
which the centuries have exalted into a permanent, 
principle of life, “If meat causeth my brother to stum- 
ble, I will eat no flesh for evermore, that I cause not 
my brother to stumble.’”’ This means that in questions 
where right and wrong are not involved we should give 
way to others for the sake of harmony. 


32 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


5. The Poem on Love. 


Gardiner, in The Bible as Literature, describes the 
writing of Paul in the following way, ‘‘The most strik- 
ing characteristic of his style is the way in which pas- 
sages of reasoning soar into bursts of splendid eloquence 
which have far more of the nature of poetry than of 
scientific precision.’”?” Examples of such outbursts into 
pure poetry are found in Romans 8: 35-39 and I Co- 
rinthians 15: 54-57, and I Corinthians 13. 

The thirteenth chapter of this letter is not a detached, 
unnecessary addition to the advice and counsel which 
Paul has been giving them, but connects directly with 
all that Paul has been saying about their daily life. 
It states the principle which, if adopted, would do 
away with all their party strife, immorality, and sel- 
fishness. It is the principle of love, or willingness to 
serve, which is proclaimed with a fine outburst of 
poetry. 


Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
But have not love, 

I am become like sounding brass or a clanging cymbal; 
Though I have the gift of prophecy, 

And know all mystery and all knowledge, 

And have such faith that I can remove mountains, 

But have not love, I am nothing. 

Though I distribute all my goods to feed the poor, 
And give up my body to be burned, 

But have not love, it profits me nothing. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. Evidence that there was a lost letter of Paul to the Corinthians. 

2. What difficult situation did a Christian church have in such 
a city as Corinth? 

3. What cure for factions did Paul recommend to the Corin- 
thian Christians? 


A PICTURE OF THE FIRST GREAT CITY CHURCH 33 


. What principle grows out of Paul’s discussion of meat offered 


to idols? 


. Describe the most striking characteristic of Paul’s literary 


style. 
Oral Discussion 


. Were those letters of Paul which were lost as important as 


those which have been preserved? 


. Read the last part of chapter 6 and the first part of chapter 7 


of II Corinthians, omitting 6: 14-7:1, and see if there 
is any gap in the thought. 


. Should not Paul have devoted all his time to his preaching, 


instead of working at a trade as he did? 


. What problems in our churches to-day are like those of the 


Corinthian church? 


. How does chapter 13 complete the thought of chapter 12? 


Special Assigninents 


. Draw a plan of the city of Corinth, showing the market-place, 


Port Street, and an imaginary location for the church and 
the synagogue, and the historical locations of several build- 
ings designated in any encyclopedia. 


. Write a brief statement of the effect of slavery on the moral 


life of a nation. 


3. Make a list of the denominations in your community. Are 


they all founded on Christ? 


Cuapter VII 


PAUL’S STRUGGLE AND VICTORY AT 
CORINTH 


The Great Invective. II Corinthians 11: 3-15. 

Paul’s Perils and Sufferings. 11 Corinthians 11: 16-33. 
The Chief Mark of a Christian. II Corinthians 4: 7-18. 
Our Hope of the Future. JI Corinthians 5: 1-21. 


1. Light from History on II Corinthians. 


II Corinthians has been a neglected book for most 
people because it has been so difficult to understand. 
At the end of chapter 9 there is a break in the thought, 
and all that comes after that seems to contradict what 
comes before. For in chapters 1-9 Paul says harmony 
and peace have been restored in the Corinthian church, 
while in chapters 10-18, which in our Bible close the 
Corinthian correspondence, harmony and peace dis- 
appear and all is strife and contention. 

It has been suggested that chapters 10-13 should be 
regarded as the third part of the correspondence which 
is later referred to in chapter 2:4 and 7:12 of the 
fourth letter. With this clew in our hands, we may re- 
arrange the whole Corinthian correspondence and read 
these chapters with new interest and understanding. 

There was, then, a first letter, now lost, but referred 
to in I Corinthians 5:9, a fragment of which is found 
in6: 14-7: 1. The fact that this is found now in If Cor- 
inthians has been explained by Lewis in his volume, 
How the Bible Grew: “ We know that it was the custom 
in those days to copy letters on papyrus leaves. One 

34 


PAUL’S STRUGGLE AND VICTORY AT CORINTH 35 


such leaf would just about have sufficed for the pas- 
sage in our II Corinthians 6: 14-7:1. In the hands of 
a careless copyist such a leaf might easily have slipped 
out of the letter to which it belonged and then have 
found a place among the leaves containing our II 
Corinthians. Once there, the copyist would easily have 
assumed it to be a part of II Corinthians and copied 
it as that when the next copy was made, just as though 
it were a part of the letter with which it chanced to 
be.” 

The second part of Paul’s correspondence with Cor- 
inth, I Corinthians, chapters 1-16, implies that the 
church had obeyed Paul’s first letter and had sub- 
mitted numerous questions to him. These questions 
are answered in our I Corinthians. When a little later 
new troubles arose, Paul made a flying visit from 
Ephesus to Corinth, which is referred to in chapter 
13:1. “But this second visit to Corinth was a sorrow- 
ful failure.. The opposition to him from the Judaizers, 
who claimed to be the Christ party, was led by one to 
whom he refers in chapter 2:5 and chapter 7: 12. 
These ill-mannered representatives of Jewish exclusive- 
hess, invading the Christian church, sneered at Paul’s 
low stature and lack of authority; they treated him as 
an interloper in his own church; they said that he was 
crafty and caught the Corinthians by guile, and that 
he had taken advantage of them’’ (Horton, The 
Growth of the New Testament). 

He returned to Ephesus and wrote II Corinthians 
10-13, which might be called his great invective against 
Corinth. This letter was carried by Titus to Corinth, 
and Paul waited anxiously for a report concerning the 
effect of this message. So impatient was Paul that he 
left Ephesus and went to Macedonia on his way toward 


36 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Corinth (II Corinthians 2: 13). There Titus met Paul 
and reported that the church was repentant and recon- 
ciled. Then Paul wrote II Corinthians 1-9, which 
breathes intense relief and gratitude. 


2. Paul’s Defense of His Career. 


Chapters 10-13 are noteworthy not only as an invec- 
tive against the Corinthians but also as a remarkable 
vindication of his claim as a worthy apostle of Christ. 
Read 11:3-15 and note Paul’s declaration of his au- 
thority. In 11: 16-33 Paul gives a remarkable account 
of his suffering for the cause of Christ. Von Soden, in 
his Early Christian Literature, says: ‘In this epistle we 
view the mighty personality of the Apostle in continual 
movement, illuminated by sudden flashes of light and 
ever from a new standpoint. We feel the quick beating 
of his heart. It is as though his voice trembles with 
emotion as he speaks. We learn all the secrets of that 
storm-tossed soul—what depresses it to despondence, 
what elevates it with joy, what brings to it the blessing 
of peace. This letter is the richest of all in personal 
confession, which often proceeds from unfathomable 
depths of the soul. The Apostle has here left a memo- 
rial of himself in which his personality stands forth 
clearly before our very eyes.” 


3. Paul’s Last Message to Corinth. 

We may imagine the Apostle Paul in the house of 
Lydia at Philippi in conference with Titus, who has 
just returned from Corinth. Titus has just told Paul 
that the party of opposition has become reconciled 
and that the whole church recognizes Paul’s authority 
and that they are anxiously awaiting a visit from him. 
A few weeks later Paul went to Corinth but meanwhile 


PAUL’S STRUGGLE AND VICTORY AT CORINTH 37 


writes this last word of affection and advice. It is filled 
with quotable sayings and exalts among others two 
great thoughts: humility as the mark of a Christian, 
and our eternal hope, through Christ. 

In chapter 4: 7-18 we have the words which convey 
the same spirit which Jesus praised in the first Beati- 
tude: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the 
kingdom of God.” Christians are not to seek glory for 
themselves but freely to ascribe all credit to God. 
Their lives are based on a different set of values from 
those that have prevailed among men. Humility, ab- 
sence of pride and selfishness, receives the chief place 
among the marks of a Christian. This absence of self- 
assertion and willingness to go to great extremes in the 
service of others lifts the ideal of Paul far above the 
ideals of the time. Even the Old Testament conception 
of life, with its emphasis on material rewards and pun- 
ishments, fell far below Paul’s standard. The newness 
of Christianity lay hidden in that phrase ‘‘not unto 
ourselves,’ which meant the absence of selfishness. 

Another passage of great beauty and spiritual power 
is II Corinthians 5: 1-21. The life which Paul is seek- 
ing to build up in the individual stands the test not 
only of earth but of heaven. It is eternal. We find a 
fuller statement of Paul’s idea of the future life in 
I Corinthians 15. Both passages present the wonder- 
ful thought that one who follows Jesus becomes “a 
new creature; old things are passed away; behold, they 
are become new.” This new life has no end. This pas- 
sage breathes the beautiful hope which Whittier has 
expressed in his Eternal Goodness : 


“T know not what the future hath 
Of marvel or surprise, 
Assured alone that life and death 
His mercy underlies, 


38 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


I know not where his islands lift 
Their fronded palms in air; 

I only know I cannot drift 
Beyond his love and care.” 


OQIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. Make a list of the four parts of the Corinthian correspondence. 

2. Why did Paul write the letter contained in II Corinthians 
10-13? 

3. Name three or four claims for himself that Paul makes in 
II Corinthians 11: 3-15. 

4. Why is Paul’s last message to Corinth, II Corinthians 1-9, 
filled with joy and gratitude? 

5. What are the chief marks of a Christian, according to 4: 7-5:21? 


Oral Discussion: 


1. Does II Corinthians 13: 11-14 fit better at the end of the 
thirteenth or the ninth chapter of II Corinthians? 
2. Arguments for and against accepting the theory of Lewis 
concerning II Corinthians 6: 14-7: 1. 
3. Was or was not Paul boasting in the passage II Corinthians 
11: 16-33? 
. Is it possible for a man to be both humble and dominating in 
his attitude toward others? 
. Do you find both humility and great power over others in 
Jesus and Paul? 
6. Does a belief in the future life influence our present life? 


iS 


or 


Special Assignments 


1. Write an outline of the experiences Paul was having in Ephe- 
sus, where he was living when he wrote these letters. 
Acts 19: 1-20:1. 
2. Does historical criticism, as used in the case of the Corinthian 
letters, prove helpful? 
. Make a list of all the persons mentioned in I and II Corin- 
thians and tell at least one thing about each person. See 
a dictionary of the Bible. 
4, Read Browning’s Reverie and report four or five of the best 
stanzas to the class. 


ew) 


Cuapter VIII 


THE MESSAGE TO THE WORLD’S CAPITAL 


The Essence of the Gospel. Romans 3: 21-30. 

A Mirror of the Human Soul. Romans 7: 15-25. 
The Christian Pean of Victory. Romans 8: 31-38. 
Paul’s Sermon on the Mount. Romans 12. 


1. A Statesmanlike Purpose. 


Paul had long dreamed of carrying his message to 
Rome, the capital of the world. He had finished his 
conquest of Greek lands, and his eye roved westward 
to Rome and even to Spain. As Paul himself says, ‘IT 
am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are in 
Rome” (1:15), and then ‘I will go on by you unto 
Spain” (15:28). Rome was the great metropolis of 
the empire. All roads led to Rome, and if Christianity 
was to become the universal religion of Paul’s dreams, 
it must make the universal city its citadel. 

Paul wished to present to the Christians already 
gathered in the city a clear statement of the gospel of 
Christ and perhaps to organize them into a powerful 
church. But his great task of collecting the money for 
the Jerusalem church prevented him from going imme- 
diately. It was recognized that it was a dangerous trip, 
and before Paul finally left Corinth for Jerusalem he 
wrote for the Romans his great argument for Chris- 
tianity, which is universally regarded as the best single 
statement of his belief and the best picture of the man 
himself as the greatest statesman-missionary of the 
world. 

39 


40 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


2. A Cathedral of the Christian Faith. 


Coleridge has called the book of Romans the “‘ cathe- 
dral of the Christian faith.” If in imagination we carry 
out the figure and compare Romans with a cathedral, 
we may better understand the contents and the sym- 
metry of this wonderful book. 

As we enter the doorway (1: 1-15) and walk straight 
down the centre aisle to the altar where both Roman 
and Jew could confess their sins (1: 16-3: 20), we see 
there the great sacrifice of Jesus who made it possible 
for all to understand and follow the way of childlike 
faith in God (8: 21-30). 

In the west transept is an image of Moses pointing 
to the law which was a schoolmaster to bring men to 
Christ and so was not a useless thing (3: 21-4: 25). 
Far across the nave in the east transept stands the 
figure of Abraham pointing to the altar of Christ and 
reminding Moses that it was always simple faith that 
was man’s best sacrifice to God (Genesis 15: 6). 

As we face away from the altar and look into the 
vast recesses of the nave, we see in the lofty heights of 
the building the possibilities of high attainments and 
great happiness in this new relation to God in the 
friendship of the Holy Spirit (chapters 5 and 6). In 
vision we see groups of men coming into this building 
with their struggles (chapter 7) and going out with a 
new principle of life in their souls (chapter 8). 

In a darkened chapel beyond the altar is a group of 
Jews who have missed the way (chapters 9-11). As 
the preacher stands in the pulpit on the side of the 
nave, he commands a view of the altar where men are 
to present their bodies a living sacrifice (12:1, 2) and, 
on the other hand, a view of the mass of worshippers 


THE MESSAGE TO THE WORLD’S CAPITAL 4] 


with all their varying gifts (12: 3-21) and their many 
duties to society and to individuals (chapters 13-15). 


3. The New and the Old. 


In Romans 3:21-30 Paul anticipates a question 
which would often have been put to him had he been 
in Rome, “How does your religion differ from the many 
other beliefs around us?’”’? The answer would be that 
true religion does not depend upon any system of phi- 
losophy or upon any Greek or Jewish forms of worship, 
but it is simply the filial attitude toward a loving 
father, which we learn to take by following Jesus. 
Such a religion would be sincere and genuine. Under 
the old systems one could be a hypocrite and correctly 
observe the forms of sacrifice and obey the petty pre- 
cepts of the law; but only one whose heart is right can 
become a true child of the father in heaven. When 
men give themselves utterly to this childlike relation 
to God, their sins are forgiven, and they have begun a 
life of growing goodness. 


4. The Struggle and the Victory. 


Paul’s own intense struggle made him much more 
successful in helping other men. “For that which I 
do, I know not: for not what I would, that do I prac- 
tise; but what I hate, that I do.” It is an intensely 
human experience, repeated in the life of every indi- 
vidual. The dramatist Goethe seized upon this passage 
and made his greatest character, Faust, declare: 


“Two souls, alas! are lodg’d within my breast, 
Which struggle there for undivided reign.” 


But Paul has conquered the lower self, ‘‘for the law 
of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free.”? And 


42 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


in the last part of the eighth chapter Paul again reaches 
one of the loftiest heights of thought and pure poetry. 
He breaks forth into the pzan of victory: 


For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
pear us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our 

rd. 


5. Paul’s Sermon on the Mount. 


It has often been said that Paul did not know Jesus 
and that his teaching formed practically a new gospel. 
To the contrary, Paul is our earliest and perhaps most 
authoritative witness to the life and message of Jesus. 
As a contemporary of Jesus, Paul must have known the 
man whose followers he persecuted to the death. Had 
he not known of what Jesus taught and of his shame- 
ful death, Paul’s conduct could not have been ac- 
counted for. After his conversion, Paul was frequently 
with the disciples of Jesus, while his memory was still 
fresh and vivid in their minds. Incidental references in 
the letters of Paul to the city of David as Jesus’ birth- 
' place, to the mother of Jesus, to James, the Lord’s 
brother, to the Last Supper, and to the Resurrection 
make it evident that Paul knew the main events of his 
life. No doubt when Paul was preaching in a community 
which did not know the gospel story, he recited many 
other details in the Master’s earthly life. | 

In his own message Paul is clearly influenced by the 
character and teachings of Jesus. The thirteenth chap- 
ter of I Corinthians is nothing more nor less than a 
verbal portrait of Jesus; the long list of virtues in Gala- 
tians 5: 22-24 are the virtues of Jesus, and the same 
holds true of other similar passages. 


THE MESSAGE TO THE WORLD’S CAPITAL 43 


The twelfth chapter of Romans is strikingly parallel 


to the Sermon on the Mount. For example, the passage 
in 12:17, beginning, “‘ Render to no man evil for evil” 
is merely a negative form of Jesus’ own sayings con- 
cerning non-resistance in Matthew 5:38, 39. Here in 
the twelfth chapter of Romans, written earlier than 
the Gospels which preserve the sayings of Jesus for us 
to-day, we have proof that Paul knew and preserved 
the spirit of the gospel message. 


mm Oo bom 


> OO bo 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Why is it correct to call Paul a statesman? 
. Why did he not go to Rome immediately after leaving Cor- 


inth? Romans 15:25, 26. 


. Quote the verse in 3: 21-30 which best represents Paul’s new 


religion. 


. What races and religions had failed to produce a satisfactory 


type of goodness? 3:9-80. 


. Why did Paul write his pean of victory? Romans 8: 31-38. 
. Name one passage in Romans 12 which is equivalent to one 


of the sayings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, 
Matthew 5-7. 


Oral Discussion 


. Which was more important, that Paul should carry a collec- 


tion of money to Jerusalem or go to Rome and strengthen 
the church there? 


. Was Moses or Abraham nearer to Christ in thought? 
. What is the meaning of Romans 12:1? 
. Under which system. was it easier to be a religious man, the 


Jewish or the Christian? 


Special Assignments 


. Present a map study of the extent of Paul’s travels. 
. Name the successive steps in Paul’s description of the Chris- 


tian faith in Romans. 


. Make a list of some of the requirements of the Jewish oral 


law in the time of Jesus. 


CuHAPTER IX 


THREE PRISON LETTERS 


The Plea for a Slave. Philemon 8-20. 

The Superiority of Christ. Colossians 2: 8-10; 2: 18-3: 4. 
Building a Life by the Image of Christ. Colossians 3: 9b—17. 
A Prayer of Paul. Ephesians 3: 14-21. 

Christian Unity. Ephesians 4: 1-16. 

God’s Valiant Knight. Ephesians 6: 10-20. 


1. Why Paul Was Imprisoned. 


When Paul reached Jerusalem with his great contri- 
bution of money for the poor which he had collected 
from the Gentile churches throughout Asia and Eu- 
rope, he did not accomplish all that he had hoped. 
The Jewish Christians were so antagonistic to Paul’s 
broader view of Christianity, which adapted it to the 
needs of the Gentiles, that they almost forgot to thank 
him for the collection of money for the poor. This 
Jewish opposition resulted in a riot in the temple, dur- 
ing which Paul was arrested and confined in the castle 
of Antonia, at the northeast section of the temple plat- 
form. Hearing of a conspiracy to assassinate Paul, the 
Roman officer in charge hastily sent his distinguished 
prisoner to Cesarea, the official capital of the district. 

At the end of two years in prison at Cesarea, Paul 
appealed to Rome, demanding that as a Roman citizen 
he should be tried at the court of Cesar. After a hard 
voyage and the shipwreck so brilliantly described in 
Acts 27, Paul at last reached the Eternal City. At 
first he was placed in the ordinary barracks, where he 
was allowed only the bare necessities of life. Later he 

44 


THREE PRISON LETTERS 45 


was permitted to hire a house of his own. All of the 
time, however, he was chained by his left arm to a 
Roman guard. So when we speak of Paul imprisoned 
at Rome, we mean that he was confined to the house 
which he had rented and where he awaited his trial. 
The hard part of it was that he was fastened day and 
night by a chain to a Roman soldier. Whether eating 
or sleeping, writing his letters or at prayer, never a 
moment of privacy. This was the worst kind of 
prison. It is from this situation that Paul wrote his 
letters to Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians, and Philip- 
pians. In this chapter we will deal with the first three 
only. 


2. The Plea for a Runaway Slave. 

In Asia Minor, about a hundred miles east of Ephe- 
sus, there was a little city called Colosse on the banks 
of the river Lycus. Paul had never been there, but his 
gospel had been carried there by some of his Ephesian 
converts. A little church had grown up and, not hav- 
ing a church-building, they had met in the house of 
Philemon, a wealthy convert. Like all other wealthy 
men of that day, Philemon had slaves. One of these, 
named Onesimus, a white boy perhaps eighteen years 
old, became restless, stole some of his master’s money, 
and ran away to Rome. 

By some chance after he had been in Rome for a 
while, he was led to the house of Paul and was con- 
verted. He immediately attached himself to Paul as a 
servant. But when Paul heard the whole story of his 
life, he persuaded the slave boy to return to his master 
in Colosse. The wonderful little letter which we call 
Philemon, the only strictly personal letter in the New 
Testament, was delivered by Onesimus and must have 


46 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


secured his pardon. This little document has a four- 
fold interest for the modern reader: it is a brilliant ex- 
ample of letter-writing; it is unique in the Bible; it 
throws new light upon the breadth of Paul’s sympa- 
thies; and it shows the attitude of the greatest follower 
of Christ toward slavery. Paul does not attempt to 
overthrow slavery, but urges that master and slave 
treat one another as Christian brothers. 


3. The Twofold Message of Colossians. 


While Paul was a prisoner at Rome, he received a 
visit from Epaphras, a minister of the church at Colos- 
se. From Epaphras he learned that some of the mem- 
bers of the church were being led astray by certain 
false teachers and were substituting for the simple gos- 
pel of Christ a curious belief in a system of angels, and 
an ascetic view of life like that of John the Baptist. 
In Colossians 2: 8-10 and 2: 18-3:4, Paul shows the 
superiority of Christ to all heavenly beings and exalts 
him as their only hope of salvation. “Let no man rob 
you of your prize.’”’ He also teaches that Christianity 
is not a negative thing as you would suppose from 
what these false teachers said: ‘‘Handle not, touch 
not, taste not,” but it is rather a positive and whole- 
some way of living. 

The second great message of Colossians, found in 
3: 9b-17, may be illustrated by a story told by Henry 
Drummond. A young girl, who had long been the 
favorite of her companions, was suddenly taken sick 
without hope of recovery. She had always been known 
as one of the happiest of girls and one who would not 
consent to do wrong. One day her most intimate 
friend asked her, “What is the secret of your good 
life?”? The sick girl opened a locket and showed the 


THREE PRISON LETTERS 47 


fine script within, ‘‘Whom having not seen I love.” 
This image of Jesus in her mind had helped her do 
right. Paul says to the Colossians, ‘‘ You have adopted 
Jesus as your ideal of life. His image is in your minds. 
You are to build your lives atcording to that image by 
doing day by day good things and casting off all evil 
habits. His image within you will work a transforma- 
tion in your character and conduct.” 

This letter of Paul was despatched by Tychicus, who 
accompanied Onesimus on the long journey to Colossz. 


4. A Circular Letter. 

The so-called letter “To the Ephesians” is now gen- 
erally regarded as a circular letter to the whole group 
of churches in Asia Minor rather than to the church 
at Ephesus. The words ‘‘at Ephesus” in chapter 1:1 
are omitted in the most ancient authorities. Also, if 
Paul had been writing to Ephesus where he had spent 
three years, he would not have failed to send personal 
messages to his many friends there. The purpose of 
the letter is much the same as that of Colossians. 

In a beautiful prayer, Ephesians 3: 14-21, Paul ex- 
presses the hope that Christians may be filled with the 
knowledge and spirit of Jesus, ‘‘that ye may know the 
love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may 
be filled unto all the fulness of God.” Jesus is central; 
to be a Christian means to be Christlike. 

In chapter 4:1-16 Paul touches upon a matter 
which is of especial significance in modern times, the 
call for Christian unity. 

Paul’s description of the Christian warrior, Ephesians 
6: 10-20, was especially effective because he was mak- 
ing reference to something well known to all his read- 
ers. What Christian who might read Paul’s letters was 


AS LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


not familiar with the armof of the Greek hoplite, or a 
Roman legionary? The Christian soldier’s belt is 
Truth or Sincerity; his breastplate is Righteousness or 
Good Conduct; the foundation on which his feet rest 
is the Gospel; his shield is Faith; his helmet is Salva- 
tion or knowledge that his sins are forgiven; his sword 
is God’s Word. This Christian knight, thus armed, 
might say with Sir Galahad: 


“‘My strength is as the strength of ten, 
Because my heart is pure.’ 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. How ae Paul happen to be imprisoned at Cesarea for two 
years 

What gave Paul the right to be transferred to Rome? 

To what extent was Paul a prisoner in Rome? 

. Why did Paul write a letter to Philemon? 

What error among the churches in Asia occasioned the letter 
to the Colossians? 

. Name four things stated or implied in Ephesians 4: 1-7 on 

which all Christians should agree. 


st 


OP oo bo 


for 


Oral Discussion 


1. Does the letter to Philemon condemn slavery? . 

2. Was it practicable to do away at once with slavery in the 
Roman Empire? 

3. Where Ee ae early Christians hold their meetings? Phile- 
mon 1:2; Colossians 4: 15. 

4, What two ideas does Paul condemn in Colossians 2: 8-10 and 

5. What do we mean by saying that one may have the image of 
Jesus in his mind? 

6. Why do we regard Ephesians as a circular letter rather than 
as one addressed to a single church? 

7. For what did Paul especially pray in Ephesians 3: 14-21? 

8. Compare a soldier’s armor with the Christian equipment. 


THREE PRION LETTERS 49 


Special Assignments 
1. The extent of slavery in the Roman Empire. Who might 
become slaves? 
2. Look up modern theosophy and compare it with the view 
which Paul condemns in Colossians 2: 8-10 and 2: 18-3: 4. 
3. Describe by the aid of a map the route of Onesimus and Tychi- 
cus from Rome to Colossz. 


CHAPTER X 


PAUL’S LAST LETTER 


The Imitation of Christ. Philippians 2: 1-11. 

Pressing toward the Goal. Philippians 3: 12-16. 

The Combined Message of Jerusalem and Athens. Philip- 
pians 4; 4-9. 


1. Paul Active to the End. 


This great Christian missionary is near the end of 
his work. His death at the hands of the Roman Goy- 
ernment cannot be much longer postponed. Chained 
day and night to the arm of a Roman soldier, suffering, 
it is probable, from his old enemy, malaria, annoyed 
by many hardships, such as the lack of warmth in his 
house (II Timothy 4:13), yet the aged Paul continued 
his Christian activity with unabated vigor. 

This is proved, first of all, by his influence on the 
city of Rome itself. His loving personality and his 
convincing arguments won to Christ even the soldiers 
who guarded him and the slaves who chanced to come 
within the sound of his voice (Philippians 4: 22). Many 
men and women outside the slave class also yielded to 
his persuasive presentation of the gospel. If we could 
know the life history of the persons mentioned in II 
Timothy 4:21, we should doubtless have an interest- 
ing commentary on the influences radiating from the 
personality of Paul throughout the different classes of 
society in this great city. A little later there was a 
great Christian church in Rome, and before the cen- 
tury was over the literary activity was so great among 
the Christians that it was there rather than in Jerusa- 
lem that the first gospel was written. 

50 


PAUL’S LAST LETTER 51 


But most interesting of all is the way that Paul 
keeps up his contact with the world outside Rome. 
Messengers from different parts of the world come and 
go from that little house on a side street in Rome as 
though its humble occupant were a king on his throne. 
His ambassadors and his written messages did in fact 
prepare the way for the greatest empire that the world 
has ever seen. 


2. The Occasion of His Last Letter. 


Philippians has been called “the love-letter”’? among 
the epistles of Paul. It was his most affectionate mes- 
sage and was sent to Philippi to thank the church there 
for all their kindness shown to him in many ways since 
the time when he founded that little congregation on 
his first visit to Europe. 

When the Philippians heard that Paul was in prison, 
they sent one of their members, Epaphroditus, with 
money and clothing and with instructions to remain 
and wait upon Paul as long as he should be confined. 
But Epaphroditus was taken sick and had to return, 
so Paul sent by him this letter which has made that 
church immortal. 


3. The Imitation of Christ. 


One of the incidental passages which has lifted this 
little letter to fame is found in 2:1-11. This was a 
new way of meeting an old question. The problem was 
how to harmonize the different groups in the Philippian 
church. As in all other churches, so in this, there were 
differences of opinion and differences of temperament 
that led to the formation of little factions. Paul de- 
sired that they might forget their little differences and 
unite on a programme of Christian work. Instead of 


52 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


arguing with them, he points them to Jesus, that 
Prince of Heaven who because of his great love for 
men gave up his special privileges and came to earth. 
Not only did he suffer the usual limitations of men, 
but also died on the cross, the supreme example of 
humility and willingness to serve. Should they not 
forget their differences and have that mind in them 
which was in Christ Jesus? 


4. Pressing toward the Goal. 


That was a wonderful confession made by Paul when 
he said in Philippians 3: 12-16 that he was far from 
having attained the goal of life. Great men have a 
zeal for self-improvement, a passion for progress. 
When Paul had the vision of Christ near Damascus 
many years before, there came to him a new concep- 
tion of what he ought to be, and he was still striving 
to make that vision real. 

Another thought suggested by this passage is the 
duty of having a progressive goal: “TI press on, if so 
be that I may lay hold on that for which I also was 
laid hoid on by Christ Jesus.” Every new stage of 
progress widens the horizon and broadens the concep- 
tion of the ideal of life. The great joy of life is not in 
reaching the goal of that first vision, but the reward 
of all effort and struggle is a deeper perception of the 
wonder and beauty of the goal of life. The ideal is 
ever far ahead of us, and the noblest life is one that 
pursues the ideal to the end. Browning has put this 
thought into his poem, Life in a Love: 


“My life is a fault at last, I fear: 
It seems too much like a fate, indeed ! 
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed. 
But what if I fail of my purpose here? 


PAUL’S LAST LETTER 53 


It is but to keep the nerves at strain, 
To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall, 
And, baffled, get up and begin again,— 
So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all. 
While look but once from your farthest bound 
At me so deep in the dust and dark, 
No sooner the old hope goes to ground 
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark, 
J shape me— 
Ever 
Removed!” 


5. Where Jerusalem and Athens Meet. 


In the last selection which we have chosen for study, 
4:4-9, occurs a verse which is the most quotable of 
any in the letter. ‘‘Whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honest, whatsoever things are pure, 
whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of 
good report; if there be any virtue and if there be any 
praise, think on these things.”’ Von Soden says of this 
passage, ‘It is the only time that the Greek idea of 
virtue appears in the New Testament, for in ‘what- 
soever is lovely, whatsoever is of good report’ the 
beautiful stands side by side with the good in close fel- 
lowship. It is as if one heard the ripple of the waves 
at the meeting of the two streams which have their 
source in Zion and the Parthenon. Paul in Athens and 
at the same time Paul raised high above all the glories 
and the afflictions of earth—this, figuratively speaking, 
is the twofold memorial that the Apostle has left of 
himself in his last epistle, which may in truth be called 
his ‘swan-song.’”’ 

It would seem that Paul, near the end of his life, had 
an intuition of the future relation of Hebrew religion 
and Greek philosophy. For in the second and third 
centuries after Christ the best that the Greeks had 
thought was combined with the great religious teach- 


+ 


54 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


ing of the Jews to form that Christian system which 
went forth to conquer the world. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What proves that Paul had great influence in the city of 

Rome? 

. Give evidence that Paul’s prison-house exerted an influence 
on many distant cities. 

Why was Philippians written? 

. By what method did Paul seek to harmonize all the different 

groups in Philippi? 

. Where did Paul first catch a vision of his goal? 

. The best thought of what two nations is combined in Philip- 

pians 4:8? 


Oral Discussion 


. How did Paul’s imprisonment affect the spread of Christian- 

ity? Philippians 1: 12. 

. Wouldn’t it have been better if Epaphroditus had not come 

to visit Paul? 

. Which is more valuable in a debate, a figure of speech or an 

argument? See Paul’s method, Philippians 2: 5—i1. 

. Find a reference in Philippians 3 : 12-16 to the Greek Olympic 
games. 

Which is more interesting, to reach the goal or to run the 
race? Discuss Browning’s view of that subject. 


ao FP &O te 


Special Assignments 


. Write a brief story of the death of Paul. Smyth, Life and 
Letters of Paul, page 222. 

2. Give a list of the points of contact between Pau! and the 
church at Philippi. Acts and Philippians. 

. Is there in Philippians 3: 12-16 a parallel to the following 
passage in The Choir Invisible, by James Lane Allen: 

“Ideals are of two kinds. There are those which corre- 

spond to our highest sense of perfection. ‘They express 
what we might be were life, the world, ourselves, all differ- 
ent, all better. . . . There are ideals of another sort: ... 
as we advance into life, out of larger experience of the 
world and of ourselves, are unfolded the ideals of what 
will be possible to us if we make the best use of the world 
and of ourselves, taken as we are.” 


—_ 


i) 


Part 3 
THE PERIOD OF THE FALL OF JERUSALEM 


CHAPTER XI 


A COMPARISON OF THE FIRST THREE 
GOSPELS 


1. Consequences of the Fall of Jerusalem. 


It is a curious fact that none of the Gospels were 
written in Palestine, the home of Jesus. It is probable 
that Mark was written in Rome, Matthew in Antioch 
of Syria, and Luke in Ephesus. One explanation of 
this complete transfer of leadership in Christianity to 
the Gentiles was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 
A. D., which marked the end of Jewish national life. 
This was a decisive blow to Jewish Christianity, that 
section of the church which opposed the Apostle Paul, 
and a vindication of the view that Christianity should 
be freed from all Jewish entanglements, and go forth 
as @ universal religion to win all the world. 

No longer could men look to Jerusalem for the 
guidance of that “living word”’ which had kept them 
informed of the words and deeds of Jesus. They needed 
a written record of Jesus’ life. Moreover, up to this 
time, large numbers of Christians had looked for the 
bodily return of the Messiah before the end of that 
generation. The preaching which they had heard from 
Paul and the Apostles dealt largely with the Cruci- 
fixion, the Resurrection, and the second coming of 

+14) 


56 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Christ. When the view prevailed that the Kingdom of 
God was to be built up on the earth, the need was felt 
of a record of the life of Christ which should show 
Christians how to live in human society. This need 
became imperative after Christianity had spread widely 
among Greek-speaking peoples. 


2. Characteristics of the First Three Gospels. 


Mark is the shortest and most vivid of the Gospels. 
It is a straightforward presentation of the deeds of 
Jesus that proved him to be the Son of God. These 
deeds are described in a series of pictures. A good 
example is the first chapter of Mark, in which Jesus 
teaches and heals in the synagogue in the morning, in 
the afternoon is entertained at the house of Peter and 
performs a cure, and in the evening works miracles for 
the crowd that assembles at the door. Mark omits the 
Sermon on the Mount, the stories of the birth, and all 
the parables except those in chapter 4. The use of the 
word “immediately”? more than forty times in sixteen 
chapters gives it an appeal to the practical man and 
especially adapts it to the Romans. 

Matthew is distinctly the Jewish Gospel, in contrast 
with Mark, which has been called the Roman Gospel. 
While Mark explained the meaning of Old Testament 
customs for the benefit of Gentile readers, Matthew 
never does this; on the contrary, he quotes more than 
forty passages from the Old Testament, thus assum- 
ing that his readers had an acquaintance with Jewish 
thought. Great emphasis is placed upon the fact that 
Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the 
Messiah. While Mark dealt with the deeds of Jesus, 
Matthew gives large space to the teachings, the Sermon 
on the Mount occupying three long chapters. Although 


A COMPARISON OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS 57 


Matthew has more Jewish elements than the other 
Gospels, it is perhaps the broadest and most catholic 
of them all, as we see from Matthew 28:20. Its aim 
was to prove to the Jews of the Dispersion that Jesus 
was the Messiah and that the Messiah’s kingdom was 
universal. 

Luke may be called the social Gospel, because of the 
large place it gives to the poor and to women and 
children. It is the Gospel that contains the most beau- 
tiful stories of the birth and childhood of Jesus. Here 
alone one finds the songs of Elisabeth and Mary and 
the description of the home of Mary and Martha. 
Luke’s aim was to present as complete a history as 
possible of the life of Jesus for his Greek friend The- 
ophilus, yet it is by no means dry history. More than 
the other Gospels, it reveals the compassionate love of 
God for ‘all sorts and conditions of men.” 


3. The Striking Similarity of the Synoptic Gospels. 


The most remarkable fact about Mark, Matthew, 
and Luke is that they are “synoptic’’—that is, that 
they see as one. There is, in fact, only one story of the 
life of Jesus in these Gospels, and that is the record 
given by Mark. Matthew and Luke borrowed almost 
all of Mark and used it in their Gospels. Eleven- 
twelfths of Mark is found in Matthew, and Luke has 
taken over nearly as much. 

Perhaps the most interesting evidence of the de- 
pendence of both Matthew and Luke upon Mark is 
their adoption of the order of events in Jesus’ life as 
given by Mark. The ministry of Jesus, according to 
Mark, is divided into five great periods: three periods 
of the ministry in Galilee, the Perean ministry, and 
Passion Week. Matthew and Luke follow Mark’s 


58 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


arrangement in almost every detail. Also, all these 
Gospels contain an account of the preaching of John 
the Baptist, of the baptism and temptation of Jesus, 
and the record of the events after the Resurrection. 
Furthermore, they all agree in omitting the early Ju- 
dean ministry, to which the fourth Gospel gives so large 
a place. 

Another likeness is the use of the same words by 
the three Gospels in describing the same event in many 
cases. This is even more noticeable in the original, or 
Greek, version. One reading the Gospels in the Greek 
cannot avoid the conclusion that Matthew and Luke 
are verbally quoting Mark in very many places. The 
following example may be given: 


MATTHEW 12:3, 4 


But he 
said unto them, 
Have ye not read 
what David did, 
when he was an 


MARK 27'25-27 


And he said unto 
them, Did ye never 
read what David did 
when he had 
need and was an 


LUKE 6:3, 4 


And Jesus an- 
swering them, said, 
Have ye not read even 
this, what David did, 
when he was an hun- 


hungered, and they 
that were with him; 
how he entered into 
the house of God 


and did eat the 
shewbread, which it 


was not lawful for 
him to eat, neither 
for them that were 


with him, but only for 


the priests? 


hungered, he and they 
that were with him ? 
How he entered into 
the house of God when 
Abiathar was high 
priest, and did eat 
the shewbread which 


it is not lawful to 
eat save for the 
priests? 


gered, he, and they that 
were with him; 

how he entered into 
the house of God 


and did take and eat 
the shewbread, and 
gave also to them that 
were with him; which 
it is not lawful to 

eat save for the priests 
alone? 


4. The Central Figure of the Gospels. 
While the Gospels agree in the great essentials, they 


differ in many little details. Yet these differences only 
accentuate the fact that all the great lines point toward 
the figure of Jesus Christ. A good illustration of this is 


A COMPARISON OF THE FIRST THREE GOSPELS 59 


Helman Hunt’s painting entitled, Finding Christ in the 
Temple. It is a very complex picture. There is a large, 
ornate building, several groups of hostile people, be- 
sides Joseph and Mary and Jesus. As you study the 
picture, whether you look at Mary or at a rabbi or one 
of the women in the background, you will see that the 
lines of composition focus on the face of Jesus. So it is 
in our three Gospels. 


Oo 


= WwW Nw -& 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. In what ways did the fall of Jerusalem affect the writing of 


the Gospels? 


. Compare the three Gospels, noticing one important character- 


istic of each. 


. Give three or more evidences that Matthew and Luke copied 


Mark. 


. What was the main purpose of all the Gospels? Compare 


Holman Hunt’s painting, Finding Christ in the Temple. 


Oral Discussion 


. Would it have made any difference in the future of Christian- 


ity if Jerusalem had not been destroyed by the Romans? 


. Which of the three Gospels is the greatest help in winning a 


person to Christ? 


. Which Gospel has the largest amount of the teachings of 


Jesus? 


. Quote a verse from the Gospel of Luke which shows that it 


has great interest in the poor. 


Special Assignments 


. Which of the four Gospels omit the account of the birth of 


Jesus? 


. On a page of your note-book arrange verses from the synop- 


tics to show how a harmony of the Gospels is made. 


. Compare Matthew, Mark, and Luke with reference to the 


number of Messianic prophecies which they quote. 


CHAPTER XIT 


THE LIFE STORY OF THE AUTHOR OF THE 
GOSPEL OF MARK 


1. A Boy at the Arrest in Gethsemane. 


There is a tradition that John Mark, the author of 
our earliest Gospel, was known as the “‘stump-fingered ”’ 
in the early church. It may be that the tips of his fin- 
gers were cut off in the garden of Gethsemane when 
the soldiers arrested Jesus.. In Mark 14:51, 52, we 
read, ‘‘And a certain young man followed with him, 
having a linen cloth cast about him, over his naked 
body: and they laid hold upon him; but he left the 
linen cloth and fled naked.” Earlier that evening 
Jesus had eaten supper with his disciples at the home 
of Mark’s mother, a widow named Mary. It has been 
suggested by Hunting, in The Story of Our Bible, that 
the soldiers who had been sent to arrest Jesus went 
first to the house of Mary and, failing to find him 
there, hastened away to the garden of Gethsemane. 
Mary sent her son, John Mark, to warn Jesus. He had 
been sleeping on his mattress and stopped only to 
wrap a linen sheet about him before he ran to Geth- 
semane. But he was too late to give the warning. He 
saw Peter cut off the ear of the servant of the High 
priest, the arrest of Jesus, and the flight of the disci- 
ples. The eager boy followed along behind and in his 
curiosity crept too close to the rabble. Some of them 
seized him roughly, but he struggled free, leaving his 

60 


THE AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK 61 


® 
linen sheet behind, not, however, until he had been in- 
jured by the slash of a sword. Mark might well have 
said in later years, ‘On the scene of this tragic world- 
drama I myself appeared for an instant and in one of 
its darkest hours.” 


2. A Scene at the House of His Mother. 


John Mark’s mother had a home in Jerusalem with 
a large enclosed porch before it and an assembly room 
within. This room may have been used by the dis- 
ciples of Jesus, for we know that Peter was often a 
guest there and spoke of Mark affectionately as his 
son (I Peter 5:18; Acts 12:12, 18). Barnabas was a 
cousin of John Mark and with Paul was, no doubt, a 
guest at the house. 

We may imagine a scene in the house of Mary after 
the Crucifixion of Jesus that profoundly influenced the 
future of John Mark. The disciples had gathered there, 
as they often did, and were recalling sorrowfully some 
of their experiences with Jesus. They told of that 
first Sabbath in Capernaum with its synagogue service 
and its miracles of healing, of the curing of the para- 
lytic, of the feeding of the thousands by the lake, and 
of many other wonderful incidents in the life of their 
lost leader. Repentant and remorseful, Peter would 
be there, unable to forget his denial of the Master. 
Mark would be in and out among them and, like any 
other boy of his age, would be impressed by these 
stories about Jesus, and his imagination would be so 
stirred that in future years he would be able to recall 
these memories of the Christ and be able to picture 
them with great vividness. It may be that scenes like 
this contributed to the lifelikeness of his description, 
many years later, when he wrote the Gospel of Mark. 


62 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 
3. Mark’s Failure as a Missionary. 

After John Mark had finished his college course and 
had been engaged in teaching for several years, Barna- 
bas and Paul were entertained at his mother’s house. 
They had come with a gift of money for the starving 
Christians and Mark became very much interested 
in the distribution of the gifts. He heard the eager 
and eloquent Paul describing a new enterprise which 
he was planning, the carrying of the good news about 
Jesus to the larger world. Mark’s enthusiasm was 
aroused, and he got the consent of Barnabas and Paul 
to join them in their first missionary journey. They 
sailed from the port of Antioch and began their work 
in Cyprus. But missionary life was not what John 
Mark had anticipated. When they left Cyprus, he was 
much discouraged. At Perga, Paul was ill and the 
journey that they had planned over the mountains 
would lead them into a region beset by robbers and 
lacking in food and shelter. Mark’s thoughts turned 
homeward, and in a moment of weakness he deserted 
(Acts 13:13). Two or three years later Barnabas in- 
vited Mark to go with them again, but Paul would not 
trust him. This led to the separation of Barnabas from 
Paul, and they never met again (Acts 15: 37-40). We 
read, however, in Colossians 4:10, that Mark was in 
Rome in friendly relations with Paul. So Mark proved 
himself in later years a good Christian worker and 
was in good standing with the Apostle. 


4. Mark in Rome. 

I Peter 5: 13 states that Mark was in Babylon (which 
means Rome) with Peter and their relations were so 
friendly that Peter was accustomed to call Mark his 
son. Later traditions of the church also describe Mark 


THE AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK 63 


as doing Christian work with Peter in the great metrop- 
olis. Irenzus, about 180 A. D., referring to a period 
after the death of Peter and Paul in Rome, writes, 
“Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also 
hand down to us in writing what had been preached 
by Peter.” A still earlier testimony comes from Papias, 
a bishop in Phrygia about 125 A. D. He says, ‘‘ Mark, 
having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down 
accurately, though not indeed in order, whatsoever he 
remembered of the things said or done by Christ.” 

Peter probably spoke only the Aramaic, while Mark 
used both the Greek and the Aramaic languages. Mark 
was accustomed to repeat the sermons of Peter in the 
Greek language for the benefit of the audiences in 
Rome. In this way Mark became very familiar with 
Peter’s ideas about the gospel of Christ. 


5. Mark’s Method in Writing His Gospel. 


When Mark was a boy at home he had heard the 
disciples tell short, disconnected stories from the life 
of Jesus. This experience, along with his opportunity 
of seeing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, made him 
almost an eye-witness of the events in the life of Jesus. 
Moreover, his work in Rome with Peter gave him 
knowledge of the main facts in the life of Jesus. Euse- 
bius reports Papias as crediting Mark with great accu- 
racy, “‘For he was careful of one thing, not to omit 
any of the things which he had heard and not to state 
any of them falsely.”” The vividness and rapidity of 
the narrative in Mark’s Gospel is no doubt in part 
due to the brilliant way in which Peter used to preach. 

Mark’s Gospel may be compared to the great Church. 
of Saint Mark at Venice. Ruskin, in his Stones of Ven- 
ice, describes two features of the church that have a 


64 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


parallel in the Gospel: the mosaics form, “underfoot 
and overhead, a continual succession of crowded im- 
agery, one picture passing into another . . . the mazes 
of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always 
at last to the Cross, lifted and curved in every place 
and upon every stone . . . it is the Cross that is first 
seen and always, burning in the centre of the temple, 
and every dome and hollow of its roof has the figure 
of Christ in the utmost height of it, raised in power, 
or returning in judgment. . . .”’ So the Gospel is made 
up of a rapid succession of pictures, all of them por- 
traying the glory of the Christ and some of them 
pointing toward the Cross. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. Give evidence that John Mark witnessed the arrest of Jesus in 
Gethsemane. 

. Where probably did Mark first hear many of the wonderful 
incidents in the life of Jesus? 

. Describe Mark’s first experience as a missionary. 

. Give two or more evidences that in later years Mark had de- 
veloped into a good Christian worker. 

. Name two characteristics of the Gospel of Mark, which are 
paralleled in the church of Saint Mark in Venice. 


mo DW ee 


& 


Oral Discussion 


. Was Mark’s failure on the first missionary journey dueto any 
lack in his home training? 

. Which is more favorable to the development of a strong char- 
acter, success or failure at the beginning of one’s career? 

. When Papias says that Mark wrote accurately from memory, 
is he thinking of verbal accuracy or of the correctness of 
the substance of the story? 


nD 


oe) 


Special Assignments 


1. Write a brief essay on the houses of Palestine and draw an 
imaginary sketch of the house of Mary, the mother of 


THE AUTHOR OF THE GOSPEL OF MARK 65 
John Mark. See Barton, Archeology and the Bible, pp. 126- 


128. 
2. Write a list of the references to John Mark in the New Testa- 
ment. 


3. Describe the visit of Peter to the house of John Mark. See 
Acts 12: 5-17. 


Cuaprer XIII 


THE GOSPEL OF MARK 


The Baptism and the Call. Mark 1: 1-18. 

The Beginning of the Ministry. Mark 1: 14-35. 

The Conflict with the Pharisees. Mark 3: 1-6. 

Withdrawal from Galilee for Security. Mark 7 : 24-37. 

The Final Journey to Jerusalem. Mark 10: 32-34; 11: 1-11. 

The Cleansing of the ee and the Conflict with the Phari- 
sees. Mark 11: 15-33 

The Arrest and Trial. Mark 14: 43-65. 

The Crucifixion. Mark 15: 15-38. 

The Resurrection. Mark 16: 1-8. 


1. The Earliest Portrait of Christ. 


No photograph ef Jesus was ever taken, but the 
word-pictures painted in the Gospel of Mark bring us 
face to face with him. This priceless record of the 
Master is a little book, twenty pages or so in length, 
and can easily be read through in half an hour. So 
brief and incomplete was it that the early church did 
not call it a Gospel. After Matthew and Luke had 
used practically all of it in their Gospels, Mark was 
sadly neglected and, if we may judge from the muti- 
lated copy made use of in preparing our New Testa- 
ment, it came near being added to that long list of lost 
books and letters. 

Modern men regard Mark as the most important of 
all the biographies of Jesus. The following estimate by 
Burkitt, in The Gospel History and Its Transmission, 
may be accepted as true: ‘If we want to begin at the 
beginning and reconstruct the portrait of Christ for 
ourselves, we must start from the Gospel of Mark. 

66 


THE GOSPEL OF MARK 67 


The other Gospels, even the Gospels according to 
Matthew and Luke, give us an interpretation of Jesus 
Christ’s life. An interpretation may be helpful, illu- 
minating, even inspired, but it remains an interpreta- 
tion. The thing that actually occurred was the life 
that Jesus Christ lived, and our chief authority for the 
facts of that life is the Gospel according to Mark.” 

In a book as important as Mark’s Gospel undoubt- 
edly is to multitudes of the human race, we should ex- 
pect to find evidences of its historic truth. Two tests 
may be applied: first, does the history in Mark fit into 
the historic framework of those times; second, is the 
book self-consistent? Mark satisfactorily stands both 
tests. From Josephus and other non-Christian his- 
torians, we know the general outlines of the history of 
Palestine. They picture for us the social culture, and 
the religious beliefs of the Jewish population in the 
first century. Mark is in harmony with this picture 
drawn by contemporaries. In order to test the self- 
consistency of this Gospel we may ask: ‘Has it the 
same characteristics from beginning to end? Is it all 
objective, ‘a transcript from life’? realistic and vivid? 
full of details? characterized by action?’”? When tested 
in this way Mark reveals its unity and consistency. 

This portrait of Jesus is the more valuable because 
it stands alone in the early Christian literature in giv- 
ing details of the Galilean ministry of Jesus. The writ- 
ings which preceded Mark among the Christians (the 
letters of Paul and the Logia of Matthew) dealt with 
the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the arguments from 
prophecy, and the sayings of Jesus. Concerning the 
facts of Jesus’ life there was almost nothing on record. 
To Mark alone we owe the preservation of the recol- 
lections of Peter concerning the deeds of Jesus. 


68 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Hunting, in his Story of Our Bible, has the following 
excellent statement concerning the dependence of Mark 
upon Peter for the material found in his Gospel: ‘‘So 
Mark wrote for the Roman Christians the book which 
- we call the Gospel of Mark. It was largely a collection 
of the stories of Peter. To some extent it probably re- 
produced Peter’s own language. Naturally enough, the 
chief character in it, next to Jesus, was Peter. We even 
find in it the story of Peter’s denial, which is just what 
honest, humble Peter would have wished. Throughout 
his book Mark tried to be accurate. He seems to have 
had accurate information regarding all the more im- 
portant events, but his sources of information were not 
always perfect. For example, he did not know the 
exact order in which many of the events in Jesus’ life 
occurred. He had heard Peter relating one anecdote 
or another in accordance with the needs of his hearers, 
and he evidently set down these events in the order 
that seemed most probable. To some extent, in addi- 
tion to what he remembered from Peter, he made use 
of narratives which had already been written, copying 
them into his book. Sometimes he copied two stories’ 
which he thought represented two distinct events, but 
which are really two different accounts of the same 
event (compare Mark 6:30-43 with Mark 8: 1-9). 


Matthew and Luke copied into their Gospels practically the 
whole of Mark. It is to Mark, therefore, that we are chiefly 
indebted for our knowledge of the course of Jesus’ life. And 
what a story he has told us! Not that Mark was a literary 
genius. His language is not particularly elegant. He simply 
told what he knew in plain, straightforward sentences. But 
through him we hear Peter’s voice, telling us of his associa- 
tion with the Master. Through Mark, for example, we go 
with Peter and Jesus into Peter’s lowly fisherman’s cottage 
in Capernaum. Through Mark we seem to hear the voice of 
Jesus calling to us, across the rippling waves of the lake: 


THE GOSPEL OF MARK 69 


“Follow Me.’ Countless multitudes, through Mark’s story, 
have “‘left all,” like Peter, to follow Jesus. Above all, what. 
an influenee has been wielded by Mark’s story of Passion 
Week: from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the be- 
trayal, arrest, trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrection! What. 
would the Christian religion be without the story of the 
Cross? We may truly say that this story as told by Mark 
has created Christian history, and it remains to-day: the su- 
preme influence for the creation and development of Chris- 
tian character. 


It is interesting to recall the tradition that Peter 
was entertained in Rome by Priscilla and her son, the 
senator Pudens. In the catacomb which bears Pris- 
eilla’s name, the word Peter, both in its Greek and 
Latin forms, appears repeatedly. These pictures and 
inscriptions in the great catacomb remind us of the 
permanent significance of Peter’s work in Rome. But 
Rome transformed the simple faith of Peter into the 
most complex religious system on earth, Roman Cath- 
olic Christianity. 


2. Pictures in Mark Drawn by Peter. 


Students of the life of Jesus naturally turn to this 
earliest Gospel for a knowledge of the facts. These facts 
are presented in a series of pictures or short stories 
which are so vivid and clear-cut that they might be 
called cartoons. For our purpose we shall select nine 
typical scenes which carry us from the baptism of 
Jesus to his resurrection. 

We first see the carpenter of Nazareth answering the 
call of John the Baptist and submitting to baptism in 
the river Jordan. He goes at once into the wilderness 
of temptation, convinced that he has been given a mis- 
sion from heaven. After the death of John the Baptist, 
Jesus begins his independent ministry in Capernaum 
by teaching in the synagogue and by deeds of healing 


70 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


that called to him multitudes of people. Soon the 
Pharisees began to criticise him for breaking the Sab- 
bath law and for assuming power that belonged to 
God. Throughout his career the opposition of the 
Pharisees increased, and they were finally strengthened 
by the support of the Sadducees and the Herodians. 
Herod Antipas also showed hostility to the Great 
Teacher and he was compelled to withdraw again and 
again for safety to regions outside the territory of 
Herod. 

After a year or two of wonderful teaching and mira- 
cles of healing, the opposition to him became so great 
and he lost so many followers because of the strictness 
of his requirements and the newness of his views, that 
he decided to go to Jerusalem and boldly face the crisis 
that was approaching. The disciples followed him in 
great bewilderment and fear. On Sunday morning of 
the last week of his life he rode into Jerusalem on an 
ass, while the multitudes shouted, ‘‘ Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord!” On Tuesday he 
cleansed the temple, driving out the traders and money- 
changers, and thus incurred the deadly enmity of the 
Sadducees, who had a monopoly of the business in the 
temple. His arguments with the Pharisees increased 
their anger, and the result of all his words and deeds 
was the union of all forces against him. He was arrested 
and summarily tried and crucified on Friday morning 
at nine o’clock. The ending of the Gospel of Mark 
which would have described his Resurrection has been 
lost, but from the first eight verses of the sixteenth 
chapter we may assume that Jesus arose from the 
dead and appeared to the two Marys and to Salome. 
In this brief way Mark sketches the earthly career 
which has so profoundly changed human history. 


THE GOSPEL OF MARK 71 


3. The Effect of the Portrait on Those Who Study It. 


Doctor George A. Gordon, of the New Old South 
Church, Boston, has told the following experience: 
When he was a young man in Harvard College, the 
study of the sciences raised doubts in his mind con- 
cerning the Christian faith. He resolved to study the 
Gospels faithfully for half an hour every morning before 
breakfast. “The result was the surprise of our student’s 
vexed life; slowly there dawned upon him that sacred 
Syrian land; slowly its ranges of hills and fertile plains 
fell into due order; slowly the light of the sun and the 
stars rested upon them; life and color came again to 
the face of nature; the people lived once more among 
whom Jesus walked and taught; and slowly there rose 
the strange, mysterious person of the incomparable 
friend of man and Prophet of the Soul of the universe, 
till our student thus led felt it to be not presumption 
but the simple, august truth to cry out in his joy, ‘I 
have seen the Lord face to face.’”’ This was not a 
unique experience. Thousands of other persons have 
found in the Gospels the inspiration that changed their 
whole lives. In-all the Gospels there are no more effec- 
tive presentations of Christ than the pictures in the 
Gospel of Mark. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. How does Mark differ from Matthew and Luke as an author- 
ity on the life of Christ? 

2. What distinctly new thing does Mark contribute to the litera- 
ture of the early Christian church? 

3. Name nine or more phases of the life of Jesus according to 
Mark. See headings at beginning of chapter. 

4. How did Christ’s cleansing of the temple on Tuesday of Pas- 
sion Week hasten his death? 


¢2 


LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Oral Discussion 


1. Discuss the question whether or not Mark can be regarded 


bo 


o> Oo Wo 


Cobo 


as authentic history. 


. How can you account for the story of Peter’s denial, if Peter 


is really the one who furnished Mark with the materials 
for these stories? 


. Does Mark 6: 30-44 report the same event as Mark 8: 1-9? 
. If Mark had not written his Gospel, would we have known 


the facts about the life of Christ? 


. Tell the story of the life of Jesus, following the outline at the 


head of the chapter. 


. What proves the religious value of Mark? 


Special Assignments 


. Do the medizval and modern paintings of Jesus give us a 


good idea of what he really was? See Bailey, Art Studies 
in the Life of Christ, 179-181. 


. Quote from Josephus what he said about Jesus. 
. Write an explanation of the fact that the Gospel of Mark 


seems to end with Mark 16:8. See Burgess, Life of Christ, 
p. 281, 


Cuapter XIV 
THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 


1. The Scene of the Writing. 


The books of the New Testament were all produced 
in the great cities of the world. Paul wrote his letters 
in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome; Rome, too, gave birth 
to the Gospel of Mark. Matthew, which has been 
called the “most important book ever written,’ was 
probably produced in Antioch “The Golden,” on the 
river Orontes. 

Antioch was a magnificent city. Two broad streets 
paved with granite intersected at the centre of the 
city. Four miles away was the famous Grove of 
Daphne. There were beautiful public buildings, and 
parts of the streets were colonnaded. Here lived the 
highly educated Jew who wrote the Gospel of Matthew 
in Greek. 

Why the author wrote a Greek Gospel of Matthew 
between 70 and 80 A. D. may best be understood if we 
recall the scene that took place there twenty or thirty 
years before, when Paul and Barnabas returned from 
their first missionary journey. The Christians had a 
church building on Singon Street, where Paul made the 
report of his success among the Gentiles. He explained 
to the congregation the necessity of keeping the gospel 
of Jesus entirely free from the legal requirements of 
the Pharisees. In the audience, we may imagine, was 
a young man who afterward wrote our present Gospel 
of Matthew. He knew of the presence of the Judaizers 
in the city, and he heard the earnest discussion between 

73 


74 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Paul and the church-members concerning these narrow 
Jewish Christians. This future writer was entirely won 
over to Paul’s side. 

During the succeeding years this man who was to 
write an important part of our New Testament ob- 
served the steady trend away from Jewish Christianity 
to the broader Gentile view. When Jerusalem was de- 
stroyed in 70 A. D. and a final end was made of Jewish 
nationality, history seemed to render a verdict against 
the Jewish form of Christianity which had its official 
centre in the church at Jerusalem. The church was 
scattered by the fall of the city and never again at- 
tained great influence. Jerusalem’s prestige passed to 
Antioch, and the Gentile Christian church there felt 
that its liberal position was justified. It increased rap- 
idly in numbers, sent forth missionaries through Asia 
and Europe, and, within two hundred years after the 
writing of Matthew, was the seat of the bishop of the 
churches of all Asia. 

In view of these changes, and especially because of 
the fall of Jerusalem, the author of Matthew under- 
took to write the book which was for several genera- 
tions the only one entitled ‘‘Gospel” by the Christian 
church-leaders. He wished to show that Jesus was 
really the Messiah and that the Jews had made a mis- 
take in opposing and crucifying him. Furthermore, he 
declared that, although Christianity was rooted in the 
Old Testament and was closely related to Judaism, 
yet it was a new religion. Jesus had told them in the 
Sermon on the Mount that Moses’ words were no longer 
binding, for he had shown them a better way. 

From Matthew 28:19, 20, and from the parables 
which show that Christianity was not limited to the 
Jews, it would seem that one great purpose of the 


THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW 75 


writer was to teach the universality of Christianity in 
harmony with Paul’s view. Many students of Matthew 
think that the main purpose was to convince the Jews 
by means of more than forty quotations from Old Testa- 
ment prophecy that Jesus of Nazareth had fulfilled 
the Old Testament hope and that the Jewish nation 
should accept him. 


2. The Author’s Method. 

The first source of Matthew was the Gospel of Mark, 
which had been written a few years before. Not only 
did it borrow practically the whole of Mark, but it 
adopted the whole framework. This is best shown by 
the following table: 


MARK MATTHEW 
1:1-2:13 Introduction. 3:1-4:11 
2:14-6:13 Jesus’ work in Galilee. 4:12-13:58 
6:14-9:50 Rejection of Jesus in Galilee and the 

organization of the church. 14: 1-18:35 
10: 1-52 Jesus in Perea and Jerusalem. 19 : 1-20: 34 
11:1-16:8 Passion Week and Resurrection. 21: 1-28:8 


The second source used by Matthew was a copy of 
the Aramaic sayings of Jesus, which had already been 
translated into Greek. Luke later used these sayings, 
as one may easily perceive by comparing the following 
passages in Matthew and Luke: 


MATTHEW LUKE 
3: 7-10 3: 7-9 
4:3-11 4:3-13 
5:11, 12 6: 22, 23 
6 : 25-33 12 : 22-31 


Matthew used so many Old Testament verses that 
it has been supposed he had a pamphlet of quotations 
from the Old Testament. 


76 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Again, the Gospel contains a record of the birth of 
Jesus, chapters 1 and 2, which is entirely different 
from anything found in Mark, and so must have come 
from a different source. The account of the birth in 
Matthew, if historical, is evidently based upon inci- 
dents related by Joseph. 

Two other sources of information from which the 
author of Matthew got some of his incidents in Jesus’ 
ministry have been called the Galilean and Perean 
Documents. 


3. What Matthew Added to Mark. 


Matthew is much longer than Mark. On one of the 
rolls which they used to employ before the discovery 
of printing, Mark would require nineteen feet in length, 
while Matthew would occupy thirty. Matthew adds 
the account of the birth, the Sermon on the Mount, 
and other discourses. Indeed, Matthew might be 
called a book of sermons. It contains (1) the Sermon 
on the Mount, 5-7; (2) instructions given to the apos- 
tles in view of their first mission, chapter 10; (8) a col- 
lection of the parables of the kingdom, chapter 13; (4) 
rules regulating the relation of members in the new 
society, chapter 18, and (5) the discourse on last 
things, chapters 24 and 25. 

Matthew has fifteen parables, while Mark has only 
four. He also has more material on the Galilean and 
Perean ministries. The completeness of Matthew’s 
Gospel was regarded in the early church as constitut- 
ing it a real Gospel in distinction from Mark, which 
was only a tract. 

Matthew has another interesting addition in his 
peculiar arrangement in groups of three, five, and 
seven. It is supposed that he did this in order to assist 


THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW U7 


the memory. There are three fourteens in the gene- 
alogy (1:17); three temptations (4: 1-11); three signs 
to the Pharisees (12: 38-42); the five great discourses 
mentioned above may each be divided into five para- 
graphs. There are seven parables in chapter 13, and 
seven woes in chapter 23. 


4. Religious Message. 


The expression ‘‘ Kingdom of Heaven” occurs thirty- 
seven times in Matthew and not once in the other two 
synoptic Gospels. It means that God’s ideal for human 
society will be fulfilled on the earth. The Kingdom of 
Love, or the Kingdom of Things as They Are in Heaven 
shall take the place of the reign of evil in human life 
and make the earth a province of heaven. This won- 
derful idea has been the chief inspiration of all those 
Christian workers and missionaries who have gone 
forth in the name of Jesus to banish evil and unhappi- 
ness from the world. 

Matthew is the only Gospel which mentions the 
church. It exalts the church as the chief agent in the 
establishment of God’s kingdom. All other institu- 
tions in our world are of less importance than this 
organization, which stands as the representative of 
Jesus. 

This Gospel affords an excellent example of a writer 
who was born and thoroughly trained in the Jewish 
faith, with all its tendencies toward the past, yet was 
able to break away from the bondage of ancient things 
and accept the new truth when he saw it. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


1. Why was the Gospel of Matthew written in Antioch rather 
than in Jerusalem? 


78 


cri Cb 


LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


. Name two or more aims of the writer of Matthew. 
. Make a list of six possible sources used by the author in writ- 


ing this Gospel. 
What does Matthew contain which is not found in Mark? 


. Note the most important religious messages in Matthew. 


Oral Discussion 


. Why were the books of the New Testament written in great 


cities? 


. What advantage was it to have the Gospel of Matthew in 


Greek rather than in Aramaic? 


3. Did the destruction of Jerusalem necessarily prove that Jew- 


ish Christianity was less acceptable to God than Gentile 
Christianity ? 


. What has been the influence on civilization of the gospel 


teaching about the Kingdom of Heaven? 


. Is the church necessary to the progress of the Kingdom of 


God? 
Special Assignments 


. Write a sketch of Antioch. 
. Make a list of the parables in Matthew. How many of these 


are found in Mark? 


3. Write a brief essay on the difficulty of accepting new ideas, as 


illustrated by Jews hke James in Jerusalem. 


CHAPTER XV 


THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 


The Beatitudes. Matthew 5: 1-12. 

The Salt of the Earth. Matthew 5:13. 
The Light of the World. Matthew 5: 14. 
The New Law. Matthew 5:17-48. — 
The New Worship. Matthew 6: 1-17. 
The New Life. Matthew 6: 19-34. 
Seven Things to Do. Matthew 7: 1-29. 


1. The Importance of the Sermon. 


Jesus is the central figure of history, and his Sermon 
on the Mount is central in the literature of the world. 
It is this sermon that brings us into most direct rela- 
tion with Jesus. Ian Maclaren, in The Mind of the 
Master, says of this document: “It was Christ’s mani- 
festo and the constitution of Christianity. When 
Jesus opened his mouth, his new society was in the 
air. When he ceased every one knew its nature and 
also on what terms a man might belong to it.”’ Presi- 
dent King, of Oberlin, in The Ethics of Jesus, declares 
that in it “‘there are to be found the great central con- 
ceptions of Jesus as to God, as to men, and as to life. 
Here are set forth in unmistakable terms the life of 
love for God and man, and all that love involves.” 
C. W. Votaw, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, states 
that Jesus’ meaning is so unmistakably clear in his 
Sermon on the Mount that “through the Christian 
centuries the kind of life which he here describes has 
been the guiding star of civilization.” 

Indeed, this clearness and simplicity are surprising 
to us in a great discourse, that is generally recognized 

79 


80 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


as a new law of life in contrast with the old Mosaic 
law. One might expect to find here language very 
formal and technical. On the contrary, it is so simple 
that we often fail to understand it in our vain search 
for something strange and deep. 


2. The Form of the Sermon. 


The literary form of this new constitution of the 
Kingdom of Heaven is remarkable. Dean Charles R. 
Brown of Yale says: “‘In the Sermon on the Mount, 
brief though it is, there are no less then fifty-six meta- 
phors, which are really word-pictures. Salt, light, can- 
dle, bushel, treasure, moth, rust, lilies, ravens, splinter, 
beam, bread, fish, scorpion—these are samples. Fifty- 
six of them! The entire Sermon on the Mount can be 
read aloud in fifteen minutes. These fifty-six meta- 
phors mean, therefore, that in this particular utter- 
ance word-pictures came from his lips at the rate of 
more than three per minute.” 

One can easily convince himself that this is very far 
removed from the ordinary legal document by looking 
up the following forms: metaphors in Matthew 5: 13, 
14; symbol in 5: 29; parable in 7 : 24-27; hyperbole in 
5: 39-42. 

Richard G. Moulton, in his Modern Reader’s Bible, 
arranges the Sermon on the Mount in seven sections. 
These have been printed at the head of this chapter. 
He believes that the Beatitudes are all expansions of 
the first, ‘‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,”’ which is de- 
veloped by “sevenfold illustration.”’ This suggestion, 
like many others of Doctor Moulton, is worthy of 
study and use. For example, it has often been noted 
that Jesus used the proverbial form of speech so char- 
acteristic of our book of Proverbs. The Sermon on the 


THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT $1 


Mount is full of these Wisdom sayings: “Ye are the 
salt of the earth,” ‘‘ Ye are the light of the world.” At 
the beginning of the fourth section of the Sermon we 
find the following couplet, which is a clew to the whole 
division which follows: 


Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: 
I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. 


The next thirty verses develop the implications of 
this couplet, and the reader gains a new insight into 
the meaning of the whole passage if he perceives this 
fine literary form into which Jesus cast his thought. 

The next section opens with the following lines: 


Take heed that ye do not your righteousness before men, to 
be seen of them: 
Else ye have no reward with your Father which is in heaven. 


This gives us the key thought of the verses follow- 
ing, and enables one to understand the meaning of 
phrases that otherwise might not be clear. 

In the midst of the fifth section occurs the Lord’s 
Prayer, which is in poetic form. Note that the first 
and fifth lines form an envelope containing three lines, 
all of which modify the word ‘‘Father”’ in the first 
line. This was printed in chapter 2. 

The sixth section of the Sermon opens with the fol- 
lowing triplet stanzas, which are antithetic in meaning 
and symmetrical in form: 


Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, 
Where moth and rust doth consume, 
And where thieves break through and steal: 

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, 
Where neither moth nor rust doth consume, 
And where thieves do not break through nor steal. 


82 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


The last section of the Sermon, with its seven divi- 
sions, is notable for its use of a line or a couplet or a 
triplet saying, followed by a prose development of the 
thought. A good example is 7:1, which should be 
printed as follows: 


Judge not: 
That ye be not judged. 


The thought in this little couplet is developed in 
verses 2-5. 


3. The Scene of the Sermon. 


The fact that the sayings of Jesus found in Matthew 
5-7 have a parallel in Luke 6: 20-49 has raised the 
question whether we can locate this great address of 
Jesus at any one time or place. Matthew says it was 
delivered on a mountain and that his disciples consti- 
tuted the audience; Luke introduces his version of the 
Sermon by saying that Jesus stood in the plain and 
that his hearers included both the disciples and a great 
multitude of the people. Matthew agrees with Luke 
in dating the Sermon in the early part of the Galilean 
ministry; Luke adds that the occasion was the choice 
of the twelve disciples. He says that Jesus went up 
on to a mountain to pray (6:12) and continued in 
prayer all night. In the morning he chose his disciples, 
then came down with them to the plain, and gave the 
Sermon to a great multitude. 

Probably the best view is that there was one occa- 
sion when on one of the hills in the range west of the 
Sea of Galilee, Jesus gave an address to his disciples. 
We might expect that he would give one of his most 
important discourses in connection with the appoint- 


THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 83 


ment of the twelve men who were to take charge of his 
work. That was a great event in his ministry. 

It is likely that Luke has reproduced more nearly 
the original form of that Sermon. Matthew is enough 
like Luke to show that there was a common source. 
In Matthew’s Sermon there are one hundred and seven 
verses, of which Luke has twenty-six in his report. 
But scattered through the Gospel of Luke we find 
thirty-two other verses which have:a parallel in Mat- 
thew’s sermon, but which Luke has placed in different 
historical setting. We conclude that Matthew has 
brought together in one address many sayings of Jesus 
that were uttered originally in different circumstances. 
This would be in keeping with Matthew’s method in 
other instances. He had the habit of collecting words 
of Jesus from different sources and belonging to differ- 
ent occasions and arranging them according to their 
subject-matter. 


4. The Sermon Regarded as a New Law. 


Matthew’s report of the Sermon represents it as a 
new law in contrast with that delivered at Mount 
Sinai. The opening paragraph suggests this, for as 
when the law was made on Ebal and Gerizim there 
were blessings and curses, so in the Sermon on the 
Horns of Hattin there were Beatitudes. Later in the 
Sermon we have verse after verse contrasting the new 
life under the gospel with the old life under the law. 
Jesus said that his teaching changed many of the 
commands of Moses. 

Yet Jesus did not, like Paul, utterly break with the 
law. He was only seeking to secure a larger and truer 
fulfilment of the law. But his fulfilment was of such a 
character that in the end it was fatal to the law itself. 


84. LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


He laid down the principle that external forms do not. 
affect the real issues of man’s higher life. This principle 
pronounces the doom of the old conception of religion. 

Jesus reduced the whole law to two great command- 
ments, love toward God and toward man. “Not only, 
then, did Jesus reduce the law to its purely ethical 
requirements and simplify even these until they could 
all be comprised in one or two, but he showed that in 
the last resort the very idea of law must give place to 
another. The real task of men was to attain to a moral 
autonomy. They were to bring their wills into such 
harmony with the will of God that on every occasion, 
however new and unexpected, they should know what 
God desired of them and do it of their own accord. 
Christianity has never yet risen to the height of this 
ideal of Jesus. Paul, indeed, with his clear insight into 
the central meanings of the gospel, declared that the 
law had now been abolished and had been replaced 
by the living Spirit; but the church has never found 
courage to follow him. Within a generation after Jesus’ 
death his message was formulated as a ‘new law,’ 
superior to the old one but still consisting of definite 
commands. This qualification of the Christian ethic is 
perhaps necessary. A time may never come when it 
will be safe to release men from all external law and 
trust them to the sole direction of their own will. Jesus 
himself recognized that. no man can possess the right 
will until he has undergone a profound inward change. 
He made his ethic conditional on his religion.” 


5. The Difference that Jesus Made. 


Jesus recognized that his religion was a new thing in — 
the world, as we see from his illustration of the new 
wine in old bottles. When the kind of life that he ad- 


THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 85 


vocated was established, it would be found to be some- 
thing different from that ever dreamed of in either 
the Jewish or the Gentile world. It was that far- 
reaching principle of love that made his religion new. 

Love toward the Father in Heaven was not the love 
of a natural son, a matter of family pride. The Jews 
thought of God as a natural father, and the Greeks 
believed themselves descendants of the gods. Jesus 
did not mean that kind of filial relation. The love 
which he taught was wholly a moral thing, the delib- 
erate choice of one whose heart had been changed 
from coldness and indifference to reverence and sym- 
pathy. This love toward God would be shown not by 
observance of some form of worship or by keeping the 
precepts of the law, for one might do all those things 
and yet all the time be acting from evil motives. His 
heart might still be bad. What Jesus meant by love 
was a purpose to obey God and to have sympathy with 
all God’s plans, even though through weakness there 
might be failure to carry them out in the deeds of love. 
God judges us for what we try to be. 


“Not on the vulgar mass 
Aalied ‘work,’ must sentence in 


But all, the ead 8 coarse igen 
And finger failed to plumb; 
So passed in making up the main account; 


All I could never be, 
All, men ignored in me, 
This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.” 


Jesus taught a love for humanity not because of 
any philosophy that taught that we were all descended 
from one father, nor because we belonged to the same 
church or the same race, but rather because there had 


86 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


been created in our hearts a love for mankind like the 
love that God has for all. Jesus illustrated this by the 
Good Samaritan. It meant that one who had love has 
a, willingness to help any one who is in need, and that 
he looks for nothing in return. This is a very lofty 
ideal of life. It is attained only through long training 
or, as Tennyson expressed it, through great suffering: 


“Love took uP ee harp of Life, and smote on all the chords 
with m 
ah ee the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass’d in music out 
sight.” 


Such love requires no law and no executor outside of 
self. It is wholly an inner thing. The Sermon on the 
Mount is best studied from the starting-point of the 
inner nature of love. This thought of love for the 
brother based on the idea that love is at the centre of 
the universe is the theme of the Sermon. From that 
centre everything radiates. The Beatitudes are only 
illustrations of that theme. The next great section of 
the Sermon, in which there is a contrast between the 
law of Christ and the law of Moses, is only an elabora- 
tion of the same thought. The section on worship de- 
clares that nothing less than reverence of the heart 
itself is real worship. And so on through the whole dis- 
course, everything depends on the attitude of the inner 
life. 

Love has been called the most beautiful thing in the 
world, but it is also the most terrible thing in the 
world. The punishment for any offense against love 
does not wait upon the interpretation of any precepts 
of the law nor depend upon the whims of any executor, 
but is immediate and deadly. Hell “has been painted 
as a place of fires. But when we contemplate that men 
come to it with the holiest flames in their nature 





THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT 87 


quenched, we shall justly feel that it is rather a dreary 
waste of ash and cinder, strewn with snow—some 
ribbed and frosted Arctic zone, silent in death, for 
there is no life there, and there is no life there because 
there is no Love, and no Love because men in rejecting 
or abusing her have slain their own power ever again 


to feel her presence.”—George Adam Smith, The 
Twelve Prophets, p. 354. 








DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What is the best evidence that the Sermon on the Mount is 


important? ‘ 
How many word-pictures are there in the Sermon on the 
Mount? Give examples of six. 


. How does it happen that the Sermon is longer in Matthew 


than in Luke? 


. In what way was the Sermon on the Mount different from the 


law of Moses? 
Oral Discussion 


. Compare the importance of the Sermon on the Mount with 


the Constitution of the United States. 


. What did Jesus mean by the metaphor, “Ye are the salt of 


the earth”? 


. Discuss the place of the giving of the Sermon on the Mount. 
. Prove that Jesus did not utterly break with the old law. 
. What two commandments summarized the old law, according 


to Jesus? 


. When would it be safe to release men from all external law? 
. How did Jesus differ from the Jews and the Greeks in his idea 


of the Father in Heaven? 


. How is love for God to be tested? 


Special Assignments 


. Enlarge upon Richard Moulton’s suggestion in The Modern 


Reader’s Bible concerning the expansion of the first Beati- 
tude into the ‘“‘sevenfold illustration.”” Show how all the 
rest of the Beatitudes are an expansion of the first. 


. Find in the book of Proverbs the statement on which Jesus 


88 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


built his parable of the House on the Rock and the House 
on the Sand. Matthew 7 : 24-27. 

3. Read Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra. 

4. What changes would take place in your community if all the 
people should adopt Jesus’ ideal in Matthew 6: 19-34? 





Cuapter XVI 
THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 


1. The Picture Teaching of Jesus. 


Jesus did so much for religion and practical life that 
his great contribution to literature and artistic beauty 
has not often been brought to mind. Yet he was 
“earth’s supreme literary artist.”” Newell Dwight 
Hillis did not exaggerate when he said: ‘Christ’s 
thoughts, injured by translators and marred by copy- 
ists, seem like those precious marbles from the hands 
of Phidias, the very fragments are so beautiful as to 
evoke the admiration of all the beholders. Neverthe- 
less, his words as quoted by his four biographers repre- 
sent in form and thought the highest products of genius 
that the literary art has ever produced. Charles Dick- 
ens was the great master of the pathetic style. When 
the novelist was asked what is the most touching story 
in literature, he answered, ‘The story of the Prodigal 
Son.’ Coleridge took all knowledge to his province, 
and his conversation sparkled with jewels of thought, 
yet, when asked for the richest passage in literature, 
he answered, ‘The Beatitudes.’ Edmund Kean was a 
great actor and artist, but there was one passage so 
full of tears that he thought no man could properly 
render it—the one beginning, ‘Come unto me all ye 
that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you 
rest.’”’ 

89 


90 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Perhaps the parables afford us the finest examples of 
Jesus’ literary work. He did not create that form of 
literature called the parable, but he brought it to per- 
fection. This perfection consists partly in the theme 
and partly in the literary style. 

The great theme of the parables is found in that 
expression which Jesus used at the beginning of his 
Galilean ministry, “the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand.” This phrase, ‘Kingdom of Heaven,” which 
Luke always renders as the ‘‘ Kingdom of God,” was not 
understood by Jesus’ hearers in the sense that he meant 
it. They thought it was a temporal kingdom, a thing 
of politics, war, and food. His great task was to teach 
them that the Kingdom was purely moral and spiritual. 
For this purpose he resorted to the parables. From 
the every-day life of the time Jesus drew wonderful 
pictures that have never been forgotten. 

He tried to make clear the essential meaning of his 
Kingdom by showing that God was like the shepherd 
who searches for his lost sheep, or the woman sweep- 
ing her floor for a lost coin, or the loving father wel- 
coming home his wandering son. In these parables the 
life of his time is vividly presented to us. We see the 
slow-growing grain, the vineyard ready for the har- 
vests, the birds in their nests, the poor widow, the 
mother kneading her dough. Some one has said that 
the parables are the perfection of realistic art; the 
tremendous paradoxes are driven home with the 
simplicity that has the apparent unconsciousness of 
a flower. By the use of these Jesus not only con- 
vinced many of his own generation, but also left on 
record for the whole world these wonderful figures 
which clearly express what Jesus wanted his Kingdom 
to be. 


THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 91 


2. The Prodigal Son and the Arabic Tale of the Mer- 
chant. 


A comparison of one of the parables of Jesus with 
the best parable which may be selected from those 
outside the New Testament will show the superior 
quality of the work of Jesus. We might go to the Old 
Testament, The Arabian Nights, or to some other part 
of world literature for a parable to contrast with the 
Prodigal Son. Even fables, like those of Ausop or that 
of Jotham (Judges 9: 8-15), might be used, for the only 
difference between a fable and a parable is that the 
latter deals with possible experiences, while the former 
has fanciful and impossible situations. For example, in 
fKsop’s “The Turtle and the Eagle,” the two animals 
carry on a conversation; on the other hand, all para- 
bles picture possible occurrences, or those that were 
sincerely deemed possible at the time of writing. 

We may select for study the Arabic “Tale of the 
Merchant.” 


A merchant who possessed an hundred pounds of iron, being 
obliged to be absent for a few days, entrusted his stock to 
the care of a friend, and having at his return demanded to 
have it returned to him, was answered, that the mice had 
eaten it; to which he made no other reply than that he had 
heard of the sharpness of their teeth in biting iron, remoy- 
ing by this declaration all suspicion of incredulity; but as 
he was going away, he chanced to meet the son of his friend 
and, seizing him, led him away to his own house. On the 
morrow the father came to him in great haste, to ask if he 
knew anything of his son: the merchant told him that as he 
was returning home the preceding day he saw a hawk carry 
off a young lad, who probably might be his son. “Is it 
credible,” exclaimed the father, ‘“‘Or was it ever heard of, 
that a hawk carried away a child?” ‘Indeed,’ answered 
the merchant, “in a country where the mice can eat a 
hundred pounds of iron, it is not incredible that hawks 
should be able to carry off the elephants.’”’ Upon this the 
father confessed his theft, paid the merchant the price of 
his iron, and demanded in return his son. 


92 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


In comparison with this read the Prodigal Son 
(Luke 15: 11-32) and note its superiority in four re- 
spects. First, the greatness of its theme, the loving 
father, is characteristic of the parables of Jesus. The 
parables outside the Bible are often humorous, but 
their themes are not great. The subject of dishonesty 
treated in the ‘‘ Tale of the Merchant”’ is important, but 
it does not compare in scope or in its appeal to the 
emotion with the subject of the Prodigal Son. Second, 
the delineation of character in the Biblical story has 
never been surpassed. The loving father, the phari- 
saical elder brother, and the repentant son are sketched 
in lines that can never be forgotten. Third, the Biblical 
story is noteworthy for its brevity; by the omission of 
modifying clauses and adjectives, it describes in few 
words several scenes, and pictures clearly three char- 
acters. Such compression, combined with adequate 
description, is not to be found elsewhere in literature. 
Fourth, its power of appeal is immeasurable. Thomas 
de Quincey distinguished between real literature and 
all other kinds of writing by the test of its power of 
appeal. If this test should be applied to the Prodigal 
Son, it would be found to stand high in the literature 
of the world. 


3. Classification of the Parables. 


A. B. Bruce finds thirty-three parables in the Sy- 
noptics, which he arranges under three heads: (1) 
Those teaching the truth of the Kingdom; (2) those 
teaching the goodness of God; (8) those showing the 
kind of righteousness required. Under the first head 
would come the seven parables of Matthew 13, and the 
following: Mark 4: 26-29; Luke 18:1; 11:5; 17:7; 


THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 93 


and also three parables on the subject of work and 
wages, Matthew 20:1, 25:14; Luke 19: 12. 

Under the head of the parables showing God’s good- 
ness come first the three parables in Luke 15, and the 
following: Luke 7:40; Matthew 9:14-17; Luke 10: 
30; 14: 7-11; 14:16; 16:1; 16:19; 18: 9-14. 

The third group, presenting the goodness required in 
the Kingdom, consists of the following seven parables: 
Matthew 11:16; Luke 18:6; Matthew 21: 28-44; 
22:1; 24:45; 25:1. 


4. Two Interesting Groups of Parables. 


Matthew 13 and Luke 15 are the two classic chap- 
ters in the New Testament among those which contain 
parables. The stories in Matthew 18 deal with the 
growth and triumph of the Kingdom. I¢ is instructive 
to note the order of these parables and the thought 
which each successive one adds to what has been said 
before. The Sower explains the unequal growth of the 
Kingdom; the Tares describes the springing up of good 
and evil side by side in the Kingdom, the Mustard Seed 
shows the extent of the Kingdom, and the Leaven, the 
manner of its development; the Treasure and the 
Pearl give an estimate of the worth of membership in 
the Kingdom; and the Drag-net teaches the final sep- 
aration of the true from the false. 

The parables in Luke 15 have changed the world’s 
conception of God. Who does not know Jesus’ story 
of the Lost Sheep or of the woman sweeping her house 
for the Lost Coin, or of the forgiving father welcoming 
home his Lost Son? These stories have been called 
the parables of grace because they represent God as 
anxiously seeking to save the lost. 


94 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


5. Religious Teaching of the Parables. 


The two outstanding lessons of these famous stories 
are the love of God and the spiritual character of the 
Kingdom. 

This idea of the love of God was new to the ancient 
world. No other religion than the Christian has ever 
presented it to men. Some one has said that ‘‘Jesus 
had the most joyous idea of God that was ever thought 
of.” This idea was so fully and clearly expressed in 
the parables that the whole Christian world has come 
to accept it as the chief message of the New Testament. 
One illustration of the power of this thought is found 
in the realm of art. The artists of the world have 
again and again painted the stories of the Prodigal 
Son and the Lost Sheep, and their pictures have power- 
fully influenced mankind toward the acceptance of the 
teachings of Jesus. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Did Jesus make a contribution to literature? 

. What was the theme of the parables? 

. Compare the Prodigal Son with the ‘‘ Tale of the Merchant” in 
four respects. 

. Give a threefold classification of the parables and an example 
of each class. 

. What are the two most famous parable chapters in the New 
Testament and what parables are contained in each? 


ao Se Whe 


Oral Discussion 
. Where did Jesus get the material which he used in his parables? 
. Why is a parable more effective than a sermon? 
. Tell the parable of the Prodigal Son. 
. Two important teachings of the parables. 


He CO DO i 


Special Assignments 


; eh ea between fable and parable, and tell one of Aisop’s 
ables. 


j—_ 


te 


THE PARABLES OF THE KINGDOM 95 


2. Name three or more of the parables in the Old Testament. 

3. What does God require of man according to the following 
parables: Matthew 11:16; 21: 28-44; 22:1; 24:45; 25:1; 
Luke 13: 6. 

4, Name some paintings which have been based on parables, 


Cuapter XVII 
THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 


1. The Literary Gospel. 

Luke is called ‘‘the most literary of the Gospels.” 
It is clear that the author of the book possessed an 
excellent command of the Greek language and style of 
writing. The richness of his vocabulary is seen when 
we know that Luke has 312 words which are not found 
in any of the other Gospels: In the first four verses of 
the book, where Luke is not following Mark and is 
entirely original in style, the language is simple and 
dignified and suggests an author of broad culture and 
skill. Even when Luke is modelling his language closely 
upon the Gospel of Mark, we find him substituting 
words and phrases here and there to improve upon the 
Greek. See Mark 1: 29, 30 and Luke 4: 38, 39; Mark 
1:34 and Luke 4:41. 


2. Luke, the Greek Physician. 


Only three times in the New Testament is Luke 
named, yet in our imagination we are able to know him ~ 
well. In the Greek world slaves were often trained to — 
be doctors, and it is thought that Luke was brought — 
up as a slave boy in the household of Theophilus, to — 
whom he later dedicated his Gospel. His kindly mas- — 


ter was attracted to the bright-eyed boy and arranged - 

for him to have a good education. We may believe — 

that he sent him to the best university in the land, 

that at Tarsus. Here at the university Luke became 
96 


} 
i 


4 
i 


THE GOSPEL OF LUKE Q7 


acquainted with Paul, with whom he was later so con- 
stantly associated. Returning to Antioch, the home of 
his kind master, Luke was brought into touch with 
the first Christians and converted. Later he settled as 
a physician in the city of Troas. 

Years passed, and Paul, with Silas and Timothy, 
came to the little town on the northwest coast of Asia 
Minor where Doctor Luke had settled as a physician. 
Here Paul was seized with an attack of sickness, and 
Luke was called in to give medical aid. How pleased 
the two must have been to recognize each other! It is 
evident that Luke became interested in the missionary 
work Paul was doing for the Christian religion. Paul 
had planned to work in Asia Minor before he had been 
forced to stop at Troas, but now Luke suggested that 
they visit Philippi, where he was well acquainted. He 
even offered to go with Paul. That night in his sleep 
Paul beheld the figure of the Macedonian calling: 
“Come over into Macedonia and help us.’”’ Then be- 
gan the great mission to Europe. At Philippi Doctor 
Luke seems to have taken up his profession and re- 
mained there as a pillar of the church until Paul re- 
turned seven years later. At that time Luke was 
named by the church at Philippi as one to go with Paul 
to carry their part of the money which had been col- 
lected for the poor at Jerusalem. Once more Luke be- 
came the companion of Paul and was from this time 
on constantly with him, remaining with the Apostle 
during the imprisonment of two years at Cesarea and 
then at Rome until his death. 


3- How Luke Came to Write. 


Paul is dead, but his great work has not been in 
vain. Thousands upon thousands of converts have 


98 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


been made in Asia Minor and Greece. Luke has taken 


up his residence again in one of the coast towns, per- 
haps Ephesus. Here he decides-to write a story of the 
life of Christ. He himself tells why, in a little note in 
the preface addressed to Theophilus, his old master 
and patron. ‘ Forasmuch as many have taken in hand 
to draw up a narrative concerning those matters which 
have been fulfilled among us, even as they delivered 
them unto us which from the beginning were eye- 
witnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good 
to me, also, having traced the course of all things accu- 
rately from the first, to write unto thee in order, most 


excellent Theophilus, that thou mightest know the 


certainty concerning the things wherein thou wast in- 
structed.” 

It seems that so many partial accounts had arisen 
concerning the life and deeds of Jesus that the Greek 
Christians were very much confused in trying to un- 
derstand what was important for them to know and 


believe. It may be that Theophilus requested Luke to — 
issue an authoritative record of the life of Jesus. Luke — 


was acquainted with the Gospel of Mark and used it 
as the framework of his biography. He also had Mat- 
thew’s sayings of Jesus. With infinite care and elab- 
orate detail, he sets out to furnish the Greek Christians 


with an orderly statement of the life of Jesus for their 


guidance and instruction. 


4. Paul’s Influence on Luke’s Gospel. 
Just as the Gospel of Mark shows clear traces of the 


influence of Peter, so in the Gospel of Luke we see the 


result of Paul’s teaching. The church historian Euse- 


bius says, “Luke delivered certain of those things that 
he had received from his intimacy with Paul.” But 


_— 





THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 99 


there is a difference. Mark tried to remember what 
Peter had said and to use those sayings with verbal 
accuracy. Luke did not do that. He informs us that 
he collected his data from “eye-witnesses.”’ If we say 
that Mark “interpreted” what Peter had said, we may 
suggest that Luke “illuminated”? what Paul had taught 
and did not repeat his exact words or the exact form 
of his teaching. 

The outstanding difference Benen the Gospel of 
Luke and the other Gospels is the writer himself. Luke 
is the only writer of the New Testament who was not 
a Jew. And if Paul had preached a universal gospel 
rather than a Jewish one, Luke surely would have been 
glad to interpret his message for his fellow Gentiles. 
And we find this to be true. Paul had declared: ‘‘ There 
can be neither Jew nor Greek. . . . Ye are all one man 
in Christ Jesus.”? So now Luke writes that Jesus did 
not come to the Jews alone, but to be the savior of 
mankind. In the story of the birth of Jesus, Luke 
makes this distinction. Where Matthew, the author 
of the Jewish Gospel, had told how the wise men of 
the East came asking, ‘‘ Where is he who is born King 
of the Jews?” Luke reported the angels’ announcement 
from the sky: “I bring you good tidings of great joy 
which shall be to all peoples.”” Luke is the only one to 
tell the story of Simeon and the song which he sang: 

Now lettest thou thy servant depart, Lord, 
According to thy word, in peace; 
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, 
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples, 
A light for revelation to the Gentiles, 
And the glory of thy people Israel. 
So Luke’s is the universal Gospel. 

The great words which Paul used in his letters to 

the Gentile churches we find ringing in Luke’s Gospel. 


100 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


The word for ‘‘faith”? so common to Paul occurs eight 
times in Matthew, five in Mark, and eleven times in 
Luke, and even more, sixteen times in Luke’s other 
book, Acts. The word “grace” does not appear at all 
in Matthew nor Mark, but six times in Luke. Paul’s 
phrase, “‘Holy Spirit,” occurs five times in Matthew, 
four in Mark, but twelve times in Luke. 

As Luke is the Gospel to all races, so it also. brings 
the glad tidings to all classes of people and not to the 
narrower circles to which Matthew and Mark appealed. 
It is Luke who tells the story of the Good Samaritan. 
He also presents to us the picture of the hypocritical 
Pharisee and the repentant Publican. Instead of trac- 
ing the birth of Jesus back to David, a prominent mem- 
ber of the Jewish race, Luke traces the relationship 
back to Adam, the common father of mankind. So 
through and through this Gospel is a universal one, a 
non-Jewish, Pauline Gospel. 

Then, again, it is Luke who pays more attention to 
women. In the Jewish church ceremony it was the 
custom for the men to repeat thanks to God that they 
had not been made women. But in the Gospel of Luke 
we have many beautiful stories of womanhood: Elisa- 
beth, the Virgin Mary, Martha and Mary, the widow 
with two mites, and others. 


5. Luke the Historian. 


Luke set himself the task of writing a more complete 
account than had been written before of the basis of 
the Christian religion. As a matter of fact, this Gos- 
pel, together with Luke’s other book, Acts, and the 
Pauline Epistles, do give us a continuous scheme of 
New Testament history. So Luke might well be called 
the first historian of the church. 


THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 101 


His first characteristic as a historian is his method 
in the use of his materials. As he himself says, he has 
“‘traced the course of all things accurately,”’ and there 
is evidence that he also has fitted his story accurately 
into the current history of Palestine. For example, we 
find Luke’s method in 1:5, “In the days of Herod, 
king of Judea,” or again in 3:1, 2, ‘In the fifteenth 
year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar.” In the latter ref- 
erence and in 2:1-3 Luke gives us information not 
found in the other Gospels. 

It seems clear that Luke did go at his work in a sys- 
tematic fashion. But did he have the sources neces- 
sary to give us a more complete story than had been 
written up to the time? Where had he gained his in- 
formation? In the first place, Luke had been for a 
long time with Paul. Paul had not been an eye- 
witness, but he could give Luke a lot of valuable in- 
formation. And then we remember that visit of Luke 
to Jerusalem with Paul. For two whole years Luke 
was in the vicinity of the city where Jesus had died, 
where many of the earlier followers of Jesus still lived. 
During this time he may have become acquainted 
with many of the twelve, with other disciples of Jesus, 
and with his mother and brothers. He would have 
visited the upper room where Jesus ate the Last Supper 
with his followers. How eagerly he would have sought 
to see Martha and Mary. We have, therefore, reason 
to believe Luke’s assertion that his story was given to 
him by those “who from the beginning were eye- 
witnesses.” 

In conversation with friends and with acquaintances 
Luke would seek to find out new things in the life of 
Jesus and new stories of his wonderful deeds. By his 
questions he would bring to light some almost forgot- 


102 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


ten anecdote. Perhaps, in this way, we have preserved 
to us the Good Samaritan and other incidents which 
Luke alone has recorded. 

But now how much more do we actually know about 
the life of Jesus because we have the Gospel of Luke? 
What does Luke give us that Mark and Matthew do 
not? (1) He alone has handed down to us an elaborate 
account of the infancy of Jesus. Matthew has a state- 
ment of it, but it is brief and different. Mark and John 
do not mention the birth. (2) Luke uses Mark’s mate- 
rial largely for the early part of Jesus’ life, but Luke 
is the sole authority for much of the material from the 
Perean ministry, which includes the last journey from 
Galilee to Jerusalem, Luke 9: 51-19:28. (8) At the 
end Luke gives us a new account of the Resurrection, 
describing the women and Peter at the tomb, the walk 
to Emmaus, Jesus’ appearance to the eleven disciples, 
his farewell instructions, and his departure into heaven. 


6. The Religious Message. 


Luke has more to say about prayer than any of the 
other Gospel writers. He names seven different occa- 
sions on which Jesus prayed. It seems that prayer 
was a constant habit with Jesus. This suggests the 
value of it to all who seek to follow him. 

In response to a question, Jesus taught his disciples 
how to pray, suggesting both the form of prayer and 
persistence in prayer. After teaching them the Lord’s 
Prayer he told the story of the Friend at Midnight. 
Just as the friend at night will rise to aid his neighbor, 
even though it trouble him to do so, so God will gladly 
listen to the voice of him who prays. 

He also taught that one who prays is supplying a 
necessary factor in the process of prayer and the an- 


THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 103 


swer of prayer. “Ask, and it shall be given you.” 
Men must make an effort as well as God. As in George 
Eliot’s poem, Stradivarius, man must do his part: 


“When any Master holds twixt hand and chin 
A violin of mine, he will be glad 
That Stradivari lived, made violins, 
And made them of the best... . 
. For while God gives them skill, 
I give them instruments to play upon, 
God using me to help him... . 
. .. If my hand slacked, 
I should rob God, since He is fullest good, 
Leaving a blank behind, instead of violins; 
He could not make Antonio Stradivari’s violins 
Without Antonio.” 


Even more important in the Gospel of Luke is the 


painting of Jesus as the friend of all sorts of men and 
women. Just as Luke himself is a physician and has 
learned to know and love the unfortunate as well as 
the more fortunate people of all groups and classes, so 
Jesus, likewise a healer, is the friend of publicans and 
sinners. 


oo PWNE 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. A sketch of Luke, the Greek physician. 

. Luke’s motive in preparing his Gospel. 

. Evidences of Paul’s influence in Luke’s Gospel. 

. What are some of the reasons for calling Luke the universal 


Gospel? 


. Show that Luke is more complete as a historian than the other 


authors of the Gospels. 


Oral Discussion 


1. Do you think that Luke was justified in making the claim 


found in Luke 1:3? 


. Are there any evidences in his Gospel that Luke was a physi- 


cian? 


104 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


3. What does Luke contribute to our knowledge of Jesus’ habit 
of prayer? 

4. Discuss the part that prayer actually plays in human achieve- 
ment. 


Special Assignments 


1. Prepare a brief outline of the Gospel of Luke. See Kent’s 
Life and Teachings of Jesus, pp. 14, 15. 

2. Make a list of the historical references in Luke. 

3. Write an essay on the materials and means of writing in Paul’s 


day. 





CuarTrer XVIII 


LUKE, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ARTIST 


1. The Founder of Christian Art. 


The religion out of which Christianity grew, that 
of the Jews, is very peculiar because of its separation 
from art. There is a distinct reason for this, for the 
law which every good Jew obeyed to the letter said, 
“Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor 
any manner of likeness. . . .”” So to this day we hear 
of no great products of art, particularly of sculpture 
and painting, that have arisen in connection with the 
Old Testament religion. For fear of violating the law 
of Moses, the Jews have never dared to make statues 
or paintings. Their only contribution to art in any 
form has been in the field of literature and, to a small 
degree, in that of music. 

Christianity, however, is very different. Almost 
from the first it was the inspiration of great paintings 
and musical compositions, and in certain branches of 
Christianity statues have been very prominent as rep- 
resentations of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the Saints. 
How does it happen that the Christian religion, spring- 
ing, as it does, out of the Jewish, should turn so whole- 
heartedly to the realm of art? Who was the first 
artist ? 

It was Luke—Luke, the cultured Greek, trained in 
the Greek classics, a devotee of the Greek love for 

105 


106 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


beauty in nature and in human nature, in the products 
of the hand and mind. Almost from the first he was 
recognized as the founder of Christian art. Indeed, 
there is an early church tradition that Luke was him- 
self a painter. Rossetti has put this ancient idea into 
verse: 


“Give honor unto Luke, evangelist, 
For he it was, the ancient legends say, 
Who first taught Art to fold her hands and pray.” 


In the catacombs there is an inscription which speaks 
of a crude painting of the Virgin as ‘‘one of the seven 
painted by Luca.” 

We do not think to-day of Luke as a painter on can- 
vas, but he painted pen-pictures that have been the 
inspiration of artists of all kinds, including painters, 
musicians, and poets. As Plummer has said, ‘‘ Luke 
has had a great influence upon Christian art, of which 
in a real sense he may be called the founder.”’ One of 
the earliest of church pictures, The Shepherd with the 
Lost Sheep on His Shoulders, comes directly from 
Luke 15. Ancient and modern painters alike have 
delighted in representing the scenes portrayed by 
Luke in the Gospel narrative. Among them may be 
mentioned Fra Angelico’s The Annunciation, Lerolle’s 
Arrwal of the Shepherds, Hoffmann’s Christ and the 
Doctors, Hunt’s Finding of Christ in the Temple. 


2. Luke the Musician. 


The music of the world owes much to Luke. From 
this Gospel the great oratorios and anthems have bor- 
rowed many of their most popular sentiments. But the 
greatest contribution is found in the current hymns of ~ 
the church. The oldest of these were taken bodily 


LUKE, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ARTIST 107 


from Luke and are known under the following titles: 
“Gloria in Excelsis,’ Luke 2:14; the “Magnificat,” 
Luke 1: 46-55; the ‘‘Benedictus,”’ Luke 1: 78-79; and 
the ‘“Nune Dimittis,” Luke 2:29-32. Among the 
more recent songs that show the influence of Luke 
we may mention “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” 
“Holy Night,” and “The Sweet Story of Old.’”?’ When 
we consider that these joyous hymns and many 
hundreds more which are sung by millions of people 
almost daily would never have been composed if Luke 
had not written his Gospel, we may consider as reason- 
able the statement that Luke is the most beautiful 
and inspiring book in the world. 


3. The Superb Short Stories of Luke. 


It must be remembered that the original author of 
the short stories found in Luke was Jesus himself. As 
Phelps tells us: ‘‘He was a supreme literary artist. 
The short stories that He produced with such collo- 
quial ease are the finest in the world; they are, indeed, 
the despair of all professional men of letters.”” Yet we 
must also remember that it is Luke who preserves these 
stories for us; it was he who put them into written form. 

Only three out of the twenty-three parables in Luke 
are to be found in Matthew and Mark. This indicates 
that Luke must have had a special interest in stories 
which enabled him better than others to appreciate 
the parables of Jesus. Luke has been called ‘The 
Compassionate Physician.” That same title might well 
have been applied to his Master, for Jesus was pro- 
foundly interested in the welfare of the poor and the 
sick. These stories which Luke has kept for us have 
largely to do with the sort of people who might easily 
be forgotten, but whom Jesus came especially to help 


108 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


and to comfort. So to Luke we owe a debt of grati- 
tude for preserving one part of the fourfold portrait 
which we might otherwise miss. The titles of some of 
the parables found only in Luke will serve both to in- 
dicate the nature of Luke’s interest and the number of 
stories found only in his Gospel. The Good Samaritan, 
The Friend at Midnight, The Rich Fool, The Sower, 
The Two Debtors, The Chief Seats, The Great Supper, 
The Lost Coin, The Lost Son, The Unrighteous Steward, 

Dives and Lazarus, The Pharisee and the Publican. | 


4. A Model Short Story. 


The finished literary form of these stories may be 
appreciated more highly if we realize that they have © 
been the standard for some of our best modern authors. 
In the introduction to the complete edition of his works, 
the famous American short-story writer, Bret Harte, 
declared it his rule to “‘conform to the rules laid down 
by a Great Poet who created the parable of the ‘Prodi- — 
gal Son’ and the ‘Good Samaritan,’ whose works have 
lasted eighteen hundred years, and will remain when 
the present writer and his generation are forgotten.” 
Bret Harte’s two greatest short stories, The Luck of 
Roaring Camp and The Outcasts of Poker Flat, are strik- 
ingly similar to the Prodigal Son and the Good Samari- 
tan. 

The Good Samaritan may be studied as a model. 
One approach to this study is by the way of the drama. 
A good test of a story is its dramatic quality. If any 
person fails to perceive the clearness and the power of 
this story, let him put it in dramatic form. This is a 
very simple process, as one may see from Miller’s 
Dramatization of Bible Stories, p. 103, from which the 
following brief outline is taken: 


LUKE, THE FIRST CHRISTIAN ARTIST 109 


Scene l 


Place: The road from Jerusalem to Jericho. 
Characters: A Traveller, Thieves, a Priest, a Levite, 
a Samaritan. 


Scene 2 
Place: The Inn. 
Characters: The Samaritan, the Traveller, the Inn- 
keeper. 


When one has put the words into the mouths of these 
characters and described the action of the parable, he 
will admit that the story is wonderfully clear and the 
action most rapid. It remains for him to see the deep 
meaning involved, for by this little scene Jesus carried 
love beyond the bounds of a single race to meet the 
needs of all mankind. 


5. A Practical Lesson. 


Beautiful form is as important in conveying thought 
as substantial value. The songs of Luke 2 and 3, and 
the stories and addresses all through the Gospel, would 
probably not have been handed down to us if they had 
consisted of a confused mass of ideas. Their appeal 
has been to our love of the beautiful as well as to our 
liking for the good and the true. Beauty has some- 
thing divine in it. God made the sunset beautiful, and 
other phases of nature appeal to us because of the ele- 
ment of beauty in them. Genesis 1:31 may be cor- 
rectly translated, ‘‘And God saw everything that he 
had made, and behold, it was very beautiful.”’ One of 
the chief causes of failure in almost every line of activ- 
ity in this world is lack of effort to make as perfect as 
possible everything which we do. 


110 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Done Ch me 


moo bo ke 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Why has Christianity rather than the Jewish religion been an 


inspiration in the field of art? 


. What may account for the element of beauty in Luke’s Gospel? 


Name three or more great paintings of the world that were 
the direct result of Luke’s Gospel. 


. What great hymns of the church are based on Luke? 


Name five especially beautiful parables found only in Luke. 


. What is the deep meaning of the parable of the Good Samari- . 


tan? 
Oral Discussion 


. Is it true that art, as the Jews seem to fear, tends to lead 


people from the path of morality? 


. Is it possible that the church would have its present fine list 


of hymns apart from the Gospel of Luke? 


. Tell the story of the Good Samaritan. 
. Discuss the question whether beauty of form is as important 


as value of substance. 


Special Assignments 


. Read Bret Harte’s Luck of Roaring Camp and Outcasts of Poker 


Flat and discover if possible any likenesses to the parables 
of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan. 


. Write a drama on the Good Samaritan by filling out the out- 


line printed above. 


CHAPTER XIX 
PEN-PICTURES OF THE EARLY CHURCH 


Pentecost. Acts 2 

Paul’s Conversion. Acts 9 

Conversion of the Roman Ghote Acts 10. 
Paul’s Oration in Athens. Acts 17. 

Shipwreck of Paul. Acts 27, 28. 


1. What if the Book of Acts Had Been Lost? 


If Acts had been lost, we should not have had any 
record of the Christian church from the crucifixion of 
Jesus to the death of Paul, a period of thirty-five years. 
We should have missed the sketch of Christianity from 
its origin in Jerusalem until its establishment in Rome. 
We should not have known the story of the descent of 
the Holy Spirit, the martyrdom of Stephen, the first 
evangelistic work, the oration of Paul in Athens, the 
riot in Ephesus, the first missionary work in Europe, 
the founding of the great European churches, and the 
speeches of twenty-five other persons besides Paul. 

The letters of Paul allude to many of these events, 
but we should not have known the background of those 
letters, and many scenes in Paul’s life described fully 
in the book of Acts, which explain the meaning of the 
letters, would be left without record. In Galatians, for 
example, there is a reference to the great transition from 
the narrow Jewish Christianity to world-wide Chris- 
tianity. Acts describes this fully in chapters 10 and 15. 


2. ‘*Six Waves of Joyous Expansion.” 
Robert F. Horton has happily expressed the history 
contained in Acts under the figure of six successive 
111 


112 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


waves of the advance of faith from Jerusalem to Rome. 
This is the most interesting way to study the contents 
of the book. The first wave (1:1-6:7) carries the 
faith from the first little church in Jerusalem through 
the whole city. The second wave (6: 8-9:381) carries 
the gospel throughout Palestine. The third wave 
(9: 32-12:23) advances to Antioch and covers all 
Syria. The fourth wave (12:25-16:5) sweeps over 
Asia Minor. The fifth wave (16: 6-19: 9) goes over to 
Europe and occupies Macedonia and Greece. The 
sixth wave (19: 10-28: 31) reaches the capital of the 
world. 

“The pulsing of the waves of the tide, as they climb 
up the beach of the world, gives the reader the feeling 
that the book as a whole is the first chapter of a record 
which would continue until the world should be cov- 
ered, as the waters cover the sea.’”’ The account of this 
movement bears the title Acts of the Apostles, but it 
might better have been called The Acts of the Spirit of 
the Risen Christ, because from the second chapter on 
we have the emphasis placed on the leadership of 
Jesus, whom the tomb could not hold. As in the Gospel 
of John, Jesus is represented as passing through closed 
doors, so in Acts no obstacle is great enough to hold 
him back. He leads his Christian forces against all op- 
position over the mountains and across the seas, until 
the centre of the world is reached, and forces are set in 
motion which are destined in three centuries to con- 
quer the whole Roman Empire. 


3. The Literary Style. 

There are passages of great power and beauty in 
Acts, especially Paul’s oration in the seventeenth 
chapter and the account of the shipwreck in chapters 


PEN-PICTURES OF THE EARLY CHURCH 113 


27 and 28. Ernest Renan called this book “a new 
Homer” because in many respects it is a great literary 
epic. 

A comparison of the style of Luke’s Diary (16: 10-18; 
20: 5-16; 21:1-18; 27: 1-28:16), usually called the 
“we sections,” with the other parts of the book seems 
to establish the fact that the author of the Diary was 
also the author of the rest of the book. We have stud- 
ied the style of Luke in connection with the first four 
verses of his Gospel. We saw there that he was master 
of classical Greek and in other parts of the Gospel we 
found passages of literary beauty. Acts has many of 
the same characteristics. 


4. Why Did Luke Write Acts? 


After Paul’s death Luke probably settled in Ephe- 
sus as a physician. In his contact with the educated 
Greeks he found many like Theophilus (Acts 1:1) who 
did not know accurately the story of the beginnings of 
the Christian church. Luke believed that it would 
strengthen and encourage Christians and perhaps win 
many Greeks to Christ if he should write out the rec- 
ord of that wonderful Greek mission of Paul. Having 
been with Paul in many of the most exciting scenes of 
his life, Luke would be in a position to describe vividly 
those events which were so critical in the development 
of the early church. 

Another reason for writing was that Luke had al- 
ready told the story of the life of Jesus, and it was 
natural that he should wish to complete the story by 
telling what the followers of Jesus had done after the 
Resurrection. It has often been asked why Luke did 
not write a third volume, carrying on the story of 
Christianity from the death of Paul through the next 


114 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


generation. No one has been able to answer that ques- 
tion, but it has been conjectured that Luke did write 
such a volume and that it has been lost. Others think 
that Luke may not have lived long enough to complete 
the record of events in the next generation. We may 
be thankful that we have two volumes from Luke’s 
brilliant pen. 


5. The Characters in Acts. 


No other New Testament book equals Acts in the 
variety and number of the persons described. Here we 
meet kings and other leading men and women of the 
Roman Empire; distinguished Jewish rabbis, high 
priests, and especially Gamaliel, the president of the 
college in Jerusalem; and, most important of all, Peter, 
Paul, and scores of men and women who helped carry 
Christianity from Jerusalem to Rome. 

Peter, who denied Christ, is found in chapter 2 
preaching on Christ with such effect that three thou- 
sand people are converted in one day. The first half of 
Acts is filled with the doings of this impulsive follower 
of Jesus. The last half of the book is given to a de- 
scription of Paul and his missionary work in Asia and 
Europe. Other noteworthy characters who help make 
Acts the greatest biographical book in the Bible are 
John, Stephen, Philip, Cornelius the Roman, Barna- 
bas, Mark, Lydia, Dorcas, Priscilla. 


6. The Great Religious Lesson. 


It teaches that there is a Living Christ, who is tak- 
ing an active part in the world-wide Christian move- 
ment. It was his spirit that possessed the disciples on 
the Day of Pentecost. He gave courage and power to 
Stephen. He enabled Peter to break away from the 


PEN-PICTURES OF THE EARLY CHURCH 115 


narrowness of Judaism and baptize a Roman into the 
Christian church. It was the spirit of Jesus that ap- 
peared to Saint Paul at Damascus and that led and 
comforted him in that wonderful career during which 
Jewish Christianity was transformed into a cosmopoli- 
tan religion. From that day to this Christ has been 
present in this world ready to lead Christianity to suc- 
cess and has been hindered from complete success only 
by the lack of men and women who would accept his 
leadership and abandon themselves to his great cause. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Name six things that we should not have known had the 
book of Acts been lost. 

What ‘“‘six waves of expansion” carried Christianity from 
Jerusalem to Rome? 

. Give examples of the literary qualities of Acts. 

. What is meant by Luke’s Diary? 

. What was the purpose of this book? 

. What is one great lesson that may be learned from Acts? 


Deno bo ee 


Oral Discussion 


. How do you account for the change in Peter between the 
time of the trial of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost? 

. How did Paul explain his sudden conversion? 

. What experience broadened Peter’s mind so that he could 
take a Roman into the church? 

. What reference in Paul’s oration in Athens broke up the 
meeting? 

. Show that Paul was the most influential man on the ship at 
the time when the wreck occurred. 

. What has prevented a speedier conquest of the world by 
Christianity? 


ao on fF WN & 


Special Assignments 
. Make a list of the addresses in the book of Acts, naming the 
speaker in each case. 
. Discuss the problem of Luke’s failure to write a third volume. 
. Make a list of the chapters in Acts in which the name Peter 
occurs. 
. Find a phrase in Acts that has a parallel in Luke. 


Be WH Fe 


Part 4 


THE PERIOD OF PERSECUTION 


CHAPTER XX 
THE DRAMA OF REVELATION 


The Vision of Christ. Revelation 1. 

Letters to the Seven Churches. Revelation 2, 3. 

The Vision of God. Revelation 4. 

The Vision of the Book and the Lamb. Revelation 5. 
Two of the Plagues on Rome. Revelation 9. 

The Final Judgment. Revelation 20. 

The New Jerusalem. Revelation 21. 


1. The Literary Influence of Revelation. 


Lafcadio Hearn, in his lecture at Tokio on the Bible 
as English Literature, recommends Revelation above 
all other New Testament books as having more literary 
power and beauty. He says: “‘I should recommend the 
reading only of the closing book—the book called the 
Revelation, or the Apocalypse, from which we have 
derived a literary adjective ‘apocalyptic,’ to describe 
something at once very terrible and very grand. 
Whether one understands the meaning of this mys- 
terious text makes very little difference; the sonority 
and the beauty of its sentences, together with the tre- 
mendous character of its imagery, cannot but power- 
fully influence mind and ear and thus stimulate literary 
taste. At least two of the great prose writers of the 

116 


THE DRAMA OF REVELATION 117 


nineteenth century, Carlyle and Ruskin, have been 
vividly influenced by the Book of the Revelation.’ 


2. Story of the Author. 


Putting together the few facts which we know in the 
case, and filling out the details by the aid of our his- 
torical imagination, we may draw the following picture 
of the author. A certain John, who as a very young 
man knew Christ or, at any rate, had been trained by 
followers of Christ, had become bishop of the church 
in Ephesus. He was now an old man and highly revered 
by the people in the city and in those churches that 
looked up to the church in Ephesus as the authority 
in all that region. Bishop John used to travel over the 
fine Roman roads to Smyrna, Philadelphia, and the 
other cities to which the Roman mail was regularly 
carried. We may think of him as riding in a tent- 
covered wagon drawn by mules. During these long 
journeys the aged man, protected by the covering of 
the vehicle, would look over his books or make notes 
of his sermons. On arriving in one of the cities where 
there was a large church, he would be welcomed by all 
the Christians and especially by the children, who used 
to run after his wagon and receive some little token of 
the old man’s love. 

When the persecution of Domitian was ordered, 
John was among the first of those arrested and brought 
before the magistrate in Ephesus. When he refused 
to worship the image of the emperor, it was the officer’s 
duty to have him put to death or severely punished, 
but he could not bear to inflict personal injury on this 
white-haired old man whom everybody loved. So he 
sent him away to the island of Patmos into exile. It is 
possible that on Patmos he had to work with the other 


118 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


prisoners in the stone quarries. But on Sundays he 
would be excused from hard labor because he was an 
honored Christian preacher. He took occasion on these 
periods of Sabbath rest to note down on odd scraps of 
parchment or smooth stones earnest messages to his 
churches in Ephesus and the near-by places. As oppor- 
tunity offered, he secretly sent these messages to the 
mainland. In later years John’s visions and warnings 
were gathered together into one book, with the neces- 
sary changes and additions. This is the process by 
which we may imagine that the book of Revelation 
was produced. 


3. The Aim of the Author. 


The Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96 A. D.) had 
announced that he was a god, and proclaimed that in 
every city his worship should be counted first in im- 
portance. It was the duty of good citizens to perform 
some act of worship in front of the image of the em- 
peror. It was soon observed that Christians refused 
to worship the emperor on the ground that it was dis- 
loyal to Christ. When this was reported at Rome, a 
general order was given to inflict a penalty on all who 
should refuse. 

There was great danger now that many Christians 
would be tempted to save their lives or their money 
by going through some simple ceremony before the 
emperor’s image. They would reason that they could 
still be loyal in their hearts to Christ and yet do what 
the Roman law required. But Bishop John perceived 
that loyalty to the church required outspoken alle- 
giance to Jesus, and he wrote those messages which 
make up our book of Revelation to encourage the 
Christians to stand by their faith at any cost. 


THE DRAMA OF REVELATION 119 


4. The History Back of the Book. 


In veiled language the author of Revelation pictures 
the struggle between the Roman Empire and the Chris- 
tian church. Thirty years before, Nero had covered 
many Christians with pitch and burned them alive. 
From that time a real battle had been going on between 
the forces of Christ and those of Rome. In this book 
the Roman religion and the Roman Government are 
both spoken of in figurative terms. Rome is called 
Babylon, and the imperial religion is described as the 
Beast. But these terms do not conceal the real refer- 
ence that the author had in mind. Revelation pictures 
the victory of the Messiah and his church and the 
fearful scourges and the final defeat which Rome had 
to endure. As a matter of fact, within two centuries 
the Christian church won its battle in the Roman 
Empire. 


5. The Contents. 


The drama starts with a statement of the author’s 
experience on the Lord’s Day. He heard behind him a 
voice as loud as a trumpet. He quickly turned and 
saw before him the figure of the risen Christ, no longer 
as when he stood before Pilate but clothed with majesty 
and power. Christ then gives John a commission to the 
seven churches. This commission constitutes the pro- 
logue of the drama and closes with chapter 3. The 
body of the book may be arranged in five acts as fol- 
lows: ‘ 

Act I 


Scenes in Heaven (4: 1-8: 1) 


A door is opened into heaven, and there God is seen 
and the Book and the Lamb, who has power to unseal 
the Book. 


120 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Act II 


Convulsions of Nature (8: 2-11: 14) 


Following the sounding of the trumpets, several con- 
vulsions of nature occur, which are sent as a punish- 
ment upon the wicked. 


Act III 
Satan’s Attack on the Messiah (11: 15-13: 18) 


After a declaration of God’s supreme power comes a 
dramatic scene in heaven in which Satan fails to over- 
come the Messiah and is ejected from heaven. The 
Imperial Beast represents Satan on the earth. 


Act IV 
Preparations for the Final Judgment (14: 1-19: 10) 
A group of saints, now certain of salvation, are rep- 
resented as on Mount Zion. This is followed by a 
prophecy of the judgment when the Son of Man and 
an angel are pictured as appearing with sickles in their 
hands. The Son of Man is on a cloud, and the angel is 
coming out from a temple. Rome is identified as the 
great enemy of the church, and doom is pronounced 
upon her. 
Act V 


Final Judgment and Final Triumph (19: 11-22: 21) 

The Messiah ushers in the millennium, which is fol- 
lowed by the last conflict and the final judgment. Then 
the righteous are provided with a new abode in a new 
world. 


6. Why So Many Difficult Passages? 
The author made use of earlier apocalyptic books 


and writings. An example of this is the likeness be- 
tween Revelation 1:13-16 and Daniel 7:9-13 and 


THE DRAMA OF REVELATION 121 


10: 5-16. Another comparison may be made between 
Revelation 22:1, 2 and Ezekiel 47 : 1-12. 

Still more material was borrowed from the book of 
Enoch, the Assumption of Moses, and several other 
Jewish apocalyptic books which were popular in the 
time of Jesus. The book of Enoch is cited by name 
in the epistle of Jude. A reading of it would make one 
feel thoroughly at home in the book of Revelation, for 
nearly all the strange descriptions in Revelation have 
their parallels in Enoch. One who is acquainted with 
the old Jewish books of the last century before Christ 
and the first century A. D. will have no difficulty with 
Revelation. 


7. The Religious Message. 


The book was intended for the Christians of the 
first century, as we may see from the first and last 
paragraphs. ‘‘For the time is at hand” and “The 
things which must shortly come to pass”’ are the open- 
ing notes, and the last word of the book is, “Yea, I 
come quickly.” 

In view of the needs of that time, what message 
among those presented by this author is most impor- 
tant? In the letters to the seven churches the expres- 
sion “‘to him that overcomes” is most common. In 
the remainder of the book the whole argument leads 
to the conclusion that the church will overcome the 
Roman Empire. We may therefore regard this two- 
fold teaching as the outstanding thing of the book of 
Revelation: first, the individual who follows Christ 
with all his heart will overcome evil and be rewarded; 
second, the church of Christ, if faithful during this great 
persecution, will come out victorious and will control 
the whole world under the leadership of the Messiah. 


122 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


NTO OT OO 


Oom G bb 


jnmd 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What conflict is described in Revelation? 
. Give an estimate of the book as literature. 
. Who was the probable author? 


What was the aim of the author? 


. What history lies back of the book? 
. Why may the book be called dramatic? 
. What is the religious message? 


Oral Discussion 


: jaketles book is more beautiful, Revelation or the Gospel of 
e? 
. Why is it probable that John the beloved disciple did not 


write Revelation? 


. What would one have to do in order to obey the law con- 


cerning emperor-worship? 


. Where was the island of Patmos? 

. Who was the Beast in this book of Revelation? 

. What city was called Babylon? 

. When did the church win the Roman Empire to Christianity ? 


Special Assignments 


. Write the substance of Revelation by filling out the outline 


of the drama printed above. 


2. Write a description of the parallel statements in Revelation 


and the Old Testament books of Ezekiel and Daniel. 


3. Discuss the author’s indebtedness to previous Jewish apoca- 


lypses and if possible quote some of these apocalypses. 


CHarpTter XXI 


AN ORATION ON LOYALTY 
THE BOOK OF HEBREWS 


1. Hebrews an Oration. 


The persecution of Christians gave rise to some of 
the best writings in the New Testament. Among these 
are Revelation, Hebrews, I Peter, and James. Reve- 
lation is dramatic in form; Hebrews is oratorical; I Pe- 
ter is a letter; and James is a sermon. The New Tes- 
tament, like the Old, has a variety of literary forms, 
although the New cannot be compared with the Old in 
literary beauty. 

We call Hebrews an oration because it lacks those 
indications of the epistle form which are so common 
in the letters of Paul. Also, it has the oratorical struc- 
ture and is eloquent throughout. 

Edmund Gosse says of Hebrews, ‘‘ The extraordinary 
beauty of the language—for instance, the matchless 
cadences and images of the first chapter—made a cer- 
tain impression on my imagination, and were my earli- 
est initiations into the magic of literature.” Edgar J. 
Goodspeed writes: “The language of Hebrews shows 
more elegance and finish than that of any other book 
of the New Testament. Its author was a trained stu- 
dent and thinker. What he wrote is so eloquent as to 
be more like an oration than a letter, and the absence 
of any superscription such as letters usually have makes 
it seem all the more oratorical.”’ 

123 


124 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


2. The Author and His Times. 


During the persecution of the Christians by the 
Roman Emperor Domitian (81-96 A. D.), an Italian 
Christian who had been educated evidently in the Old 
Testament and in the Greek philosophy of the times 
was arrested, taken away from Italy, and imprisoned 
(13:18, 19), perhaps in the island of Sardinia, where 
he may have had to work in the stone quarries. We 
may imagine that this man was the author of He- 
brews, but we have to build up his life from a very small 
amount of material. One reference (13 : 24) states that 
the author was writing to a church in Italy. Another 
verse (13:23) says that he hopes to be restored to 
his friends very soon. 

We shall not be far out of the way in our view of the 
author and the circumstances of writing Hebrews if we 
imagine him in the midst of the general persecution 
under Domitian. A writer of the third century de- 
scribes Domitian as a man of Nero’s type of cruelty 
and as the next emperor after Nero to raise a persecu- 
tion against the Christians. He caused his own cousin, 
Flavius Clemens, to be put to death on the charge of 
being a Christian, and he banished Domitilla, the wife 
or Clemens. There is an interesting report that the 
grandchildren of one of Jesus’ brothers was summoned 
before the emperor, who feared that they might ven- 
ture to set up royal claims as being of the line of David. 
But when they appeared, they were so poor and igno- 
rant that they were dismissed at once. 

At this time Timothy was arrested (13: 23) and put 
in prison. The author of Hebrews was, like Timothy, 
no doubt, a distinguished leader in the Christian church. 
It is probable that he was a member of the Roman 
church. What his date was is difficult to say. Since 


AN ORATION ON LOYALTY 125 


he made use of the ideas in Galatians, I Corinthians, 
and Romans, he must have lived after the time of Paul. 
On the other hand, he wrote his eloquent appeal before 
97 A. D., because Clement of Rome, writing at that 
time, quoted Hebrews. The horrible persecution by 
Nero was long past (10:32). Evidently a new trial 
is at hand (12:3), but it is not yet very severe (12: 4). 
We may conclude that this unknown author wrote his 
eloquent plea from some point outside of Italy, where 
he was unwillingly detained along with other Chris- 
tians some time between 90 and 96 A. D. 


3. The Occasion and Aim. 


It was long since the Roman Christians had endured 
the shame and suffering inflicted by the cruel Nero. In 
that they had been sustained by the hope of the second 
coming of Christ. Thirty years had passed away, and 
Christ had not appeared. Moreover, a new period of 
suffering was upon them, and they were not prepared 
to meet it with that loyal faith and high hope which 
had given them courage in the days of Nero. Unbelief 
had crept in and in many cases the members had either 
actually abandoned their church or were in danger of 
giving up their allegiance. 

From his exile a great leader of the church pens this 
noble oration, exhorting, warning, and inspiring the 
persecuted church. He hopes to bring back those who 
have fallen away and to put new courage into the 
hearts of the faithful but dispirited members. 


4. The Outline of the Author’s Plea. 

(a) The address opens with an eloquent description 
of Christ as superior to all other mediators and as 
supreme in the universe (1: 1-2: 18). 


126 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


(b) Then Christ is presented as very much greater 
than Moses (3: 1-6). 


(c) Christ is a mediator more important than any 
high priest (4: 14-10: 39). 

(d) Jesus exemplifies a faith surpassing that of all 
the heroes of old and is worthy of their loyalty at any 
cost (11: 1-13: 25). 


5. The Title ‘‘ To the Hebrews.” 


In the second century this anonymous oration re- 
ceived the title “To the Hebrews,’ probably because 
it made such frequent reference to Old Testament cus- 
toms. When Clement, in 97 A. D., used the document, 
it had no title, and no mention was made of any 
author. In later generations the scholars of the church 
ascribed the book to Paul, but the earlier church 
fathers acknowledged that they did not know who 
wrote it. To this day there has been no agreement on 
the question of the authorship and no certain knowl- 
edge of the place and time of writing. 

One thing is sure, the author was well acquainted 
with the Jewish-Alexandrian philosophy which Philo 
was teaching in Alexandria at the very time that Jesus 
was engaged in the Galilean ministry. Philo was born 
just before the beginning of the Christian era and died 
about 50 A.D. He combined Old Testament religion 
and Greek philosophy, making an antithesis between 
the eternal world of reality and the present world of 
material things, and this antithesis was used by the 
author of Hebrews. He called Judaism a shadow (8: 5; 
9:9-24; 10:1) and Christianity the eternal reality 
(8:2; 10:1). 


AN ORATION ON LOYALTY 127 


6. Faith and Loyalty. 


Chapters 11 and 12 are unsurpassed in their appeal 
for faith and loyalty. The author gives the definition 
of belief and then calls to mind the great heroes of the 
past who exemplified unshakable belief in the Unseen. 
After naming those great characters, he asserts that 
“apart from us they should not be made perfect.” 
Chapter 12 follows with its picture of the great cloud | 
of witnesses in the amphitheatre of life who will ap- 
plaud us as we ‘“‘lay aside every weight and the sin 
which doth so easily beset us’’ and run with patience 
the race, ‘‘looking unto Jesus, the author of our faith.” 
It is a great appeal for loyalty to him who for us endured 
the cross. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What four New Testament books arose out of the persecution 
of Christians by the Roman Government? 

Why do we call Hebrews an oration instead of a letter? 

Give an estimate of its value as literature. 

. Out of the few materials which we possess, construct a story 

of the author’s life. 

. What were the occasion and aim of the book? 

. Why did the scholars of the second century give to the book 

the title “To the Hebrews”? 


Oo Bwh 


Oral Discussion 


. What is the noblest sentiment in chapter 11? 

. What person mentioned in chapter 11 is the best example of 
the subject ? 

. What example is drawn in chapter 12 from the ancient ath- 
letic games? 

. Do the following passages refer necessarily to a time of severe: 
persecution: 10: 32; 12:4; 13:3, 18, 19, 28, 24? 

7 BE Mo a in chapters 1 to 4 does the author exalt. 

esus 1 
. What would you regard as the chief teaching of this book? 


Oo ON & WF NK 


128 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Special Assignments 


1. Make a list of the most notable oratorical expressions in 
chapters 1 and 2. 

2. Write in two hundred words the argument of the book, {ol- 
lowing the outline under section 4 above. 

3. Compare Tacitus’ description of the persecution under Nero 
with the reference in Hebrews 10: 32-34. See Goodspeed, 


p. 93. 


CHAPTER XXII 


A MESSAGE OF HOPE 
I PETER 


1. A Mysterious Blessing Held in Reserve. 


I Peter is very happy in its description of that 
“wonderful secret”? that will be revealed when Jesus 
comes. It is a “hope” unbelievably precious. It is an 
“inheritance” that cannot fade. It is a “salvation” 
waiting to make itself known at the right moment. It 
is a “goal” over which Christians will rejoice with tri- 
umphant, unutterable joy. These very trials that 
Christians are now enduring are the means of showing 
that their faith, which enables them to hold out until 
the end, is more precious than gold, and that those 
who do hold out will have praise, glory, and honor 
surpassing all their dreams. 

Prophets foretold the blessings which these Chris- 
tians were destined to enjoy, but no prophet ever ex- 
perienced them. Even angels desired to know what 
the mystery was, but they did not find out and no 
glimpse will be permitted any one until the great day 
arrives. Although Jesus cannot now be seen, his fol- 
lowers should live spiritually, reverently, hopefully, 
joyously until he is revealed; then they will share his 
glory and will receive a glorious wreath. 


2. Who Are the Persons Thus Addressed? 

They are part of a brotherhood having members all 
over the world (5:9), and all the brotherhood is hav- 
ing the same experience of suffering. This suffering has 

129 


130 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


not yet reached in its intensity the regions addressed 
by I Peter (1:13; 3:15; 4:12). These persons are evi- 
dently members of small churches in Pontus, Galatia, 
Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. That they were not 
Jewish Christians is shown by 1: 14, 18; 2:9, 10; 4:3. 
They were converts from the Gentiles and are now 
‘dispersed’? among the heathen population. 

A study of the map will show that they were remote 
from Rome. No regular mail would take letters there 
and the securing of passage on ships and safe conduct 
over the land routes would require much time. It is 
easy to see that these distant churches would be among 
the last to suffer persecution, and that they would also 
be less well-informed about current events. The tone 
of the letter implies ignorance and lack of development 
among these adherents of Christianity. 

The messenger who carried I Peter to the provinces 
of Asia Minor would go from Rome to some port of 
Italy, then take ship for Pontus. From Pontus and 
Bithynia the main road went south to Cappadocia, then 
turned west into Asia. The letter would be read in the 
churches on the way, and now and then some church 
would have a scribe with interest enough in the pres- 
ervation of such a document to copy the letter and 
keep it in the box of valuables. 


3. Why and When Was the Letter Written? 


All agree that the Christians addressed were being 
persecuted, or were about to be persecuted, by Rome 
(1:6; 2:12; 4:12-19; 5:9). The motive of the writer 
was twofold: first, to encourage the followers of Jesus 
to be faithful at all costs; second, to exhort them to 
live such good lives that to be a Christian could not be 
regarded as a crime. 


A MESSAGE OF HOPE 131 


Was it the persecution of Nero or that under Do- 
mitian, which continued on into the time of Pliny’s 
governorship of Bithynia, to which I Peter refers? The 
persecution by Nero in 64 A. D. was confined to Rome 
and could not therefore be the occasion of I Peter, 
which has in mind a serious attack on Christians in 
Asia Minor. Moreover, Nero punished Christians not 
for making a profession of Christianity, but rather, as 
a contemporary writer says, because they ‘‘ were hated 
for their enormities”’ and ‘‘for hating the human race’”’ 
(Tacitus, Annals, 15:39). It was probably not until 
the time of Domitian that to be a Christian became a 
recognized offense. If so, I Peter 4: 16 shows that the 
letter was written during the time of Domitian or a. 
little later. 

This date makes it impossible to think of the Apostle 
Peter as the author. Who did write the letter no one 
knows. There is an old church tradition that can be 
traced back to Irenzus, about 180 A. D., which gives 
Peter credit for the book, but this cannot be trusted, 
for it was a common custom of the church fathers to 
assign an anonymous book to the Apostles, as He- 
brews was credited to Paul and II Peter to the Apostle 
Peter. From 5:1 and 5:13 we may conjecture with 
Goodspeed that “‘a Christian elder of Rome wrote to 
his brethren throughout Asia Minor a letter of advice 
and encouragement. Perhaps the epistle to the He- 
brews had already reached Rome and its ringing chal- 
lenge to the Romans to be teachers stirred him to 
write. . . . But, whoever wrote it, it gave the imper- 
illed Christians all through Asia Minor a message of 
hope and courage during the persecution of Domitian, 
pointed out the difference between suffering for being a 
criminal and suffering for being a Christian, and in- 


132 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


spired them to overcome by lives of purity and good- 
aess the hatred and slanders of the heathen world.”’ 


4. Light on I Peter from a Letter of Pliny. 


An interesting side-light on I Peter has been pre- 
served for us in a Latin letter by Pliny the Younger. 
He was governor of Bithynia shortly after I Peter was 
written. Pliny describes the method of persecuting 
Christians and uses the phrase ‘‘as Christians,” which 
is found also in I Peter 4:16. He shows that a sys- 
tematic legal persecution has been going on for a long 
time, which furnishes us .a background for under- 
standing our Biblical letter. 

Pliny’s letter was an official report to the Emperor 
Trajan about 112 A. D., and is one of our earliest tes- 
timonies concerning Christian customs. It declares 
that the only offense committed by Christians was as 
follows: 


‘“They affirmed the whole of their guilt, or their error, was, that 
they met on a stated day before it was light, and addressed 
a form of prayer to Christ, as to a divinity, binding them- 
selves by a solemn oath, not for the purposes of any wicked 
design, but never to commit any fraud, theft, or adultery, 
never to falsify their word, nor deny a trust when they 
should be called upon ‘to deliver it up; after which it was 
their custom to separate, and then reassemble, to eat in 
common a harmless meal. From this custom, however, 
they desisted after the publication of my edict, by which, 
according to your commands, I forbade the meeting of any 
assemblies. After receiving this account, I judged it so much 
the more necessary to endeavor to extort the real truth, by 
putting two female slaves to the torture, who were said to 
officiate in their religious rites; but all I could discover was 
evidence of an absurd and extravagant superstition.” 


5. The Line of Thought. 


(a) Do not abandon your hope in the risen Christ 
(1: 1-2: 10). 


A MESSAGE OF HOPE 133 


(b) Add to your hope good lives, that you may be 
examples to the Gentiles, among whom you live 
(2:11-3:12). 

(c) Even if you suffer, have courage and give a 
reason for the hope that is in you, remembering that 
Christ also suffered (8 : 18-4: 11). 

(d) If the trial by fire tests you, rejoice in the hope 
of that glory which you will share with Jesus Christ 
(4: 12-5: 14). 


6. Peculiar Passages. 


In 3:18-20 and 4:6 the author states that Jesus 

“went and preached unto the spirits in prison that 
aforetime were disobedient, when the long-suffering of 
God waited in the days of Noah.” Also in 4:6 we 
read, “‘The gospel was preached even to the dead.” 
On these verses the church has built up its doctrine of 
Purgatory. 

It has been suggested that I Peter is here expressing 
a belief which was current in Jewish circles. In the 
book of Enoch, for example, may be found passages 
which mean that wicked men have a time of repen-: 
tance allowed them between the deluge and the final 
judgment at the end of the world. As in other parts 
of the Bible, ancient traditions are retained, so here 
evidently is a belief reported by I Peter but not bind- 
ing on modern Christians. 

We wonder at the instruction given in 3: 1-6. Wives 
are told to subject themselves to their husbands, even 
though the latter are disobedient to God; also, to avoid 
making an outward show of beauty by braiding the 
hair, and wearing jewels, and putting on fine apparel. 
The explanation of these directions lies in the age from 
which they come. In that day women were regarded 


134 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


as inferior to men, and any public attempts to attract 
attention were the commonly understood evidences of 
a sinful life. 


7. Two Important Lessons. 


Hope is characteristic of the Christian life. This word 
occurs several times in this short letter and has been 
regarded as the key-word. A despairing Christian is an 
impossibility. I Peter makes that thought clearer than 
any other book in the Bible. j 

The power of the invisible Christ to win love and 
change human character is expressed in 1:8. We be- 
come like that which we admire. Christians who look 
with love and adoration to Christ become like him. 
“We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”’ 
Hawthorne’s story of ‘‘The Great Stone Face” is an 
excellent illustration of this experience. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. How does I Peter describe the “‘hope”’ of the Christians? 

. Why is it probable that the persons addressed were Gentile 
hristians rather than Jewish? 

. Two periods of persecution that furnish a suitable background 

for I Peter. 

. Give an argument for the late date of the letter. 

. What was the aim of the author? 

. Give the main thoughts of the letter. 


Omme G be 


Oral Discussion 
. Locate on the map the churches addressed in this letter. 
. What is the meaning of being persecuted ‘‘as a Christian’’? 
. What value would the letter gain if published under the 
name of the Apostle Peter? 
. What is the value of Pliny’s letter to students of Christianity ? 
. What is the Biblical origin of the belief in Purgatory? 


om Whe 


A MESSAGE OF HOPE 135 


Special Assignments 


1. Give an abstract of Pliny’s letter to Trajan concerning Chris- 
tianity in Asia Minor. 

2. An imaginary sketch of the elder of the Roman church who 
wrote I Peter. 

3. Tell Hawthorne’s story of ‘The Great Stone Face.” 

4. Compare the persecution of Christians under Domitian with 
that under Nero. 


CHAPTER XXIII 
A CHRISTIAN CRITIC 


THE BOOK OF JAMES 


1. A Book of Imperatives. 


George W. Cable’s novel, Dr. Sevier, has a descrip- 
tive sentence which has been applied to the author of 
the book of James, ‘‘His inner heart was all of flesh; 
but his demands for the rectitude of mankind pointed 
out like the muzzles of cannon through the embrasures 
of his virtues.”’? James fairly bristles with imperatives. 
There are fifty-four imperatives demanding virtue in 
one hundred and eight verses. Examples of these are 
as follows: ‘‘Be quick to hear, slow to speak’’; “Be ye 
doers, not hearers only’’; “Hold not the faith with re- 
spect to persons”; “Resist the devil, and he will flee 
from you.” 

Back of these pointed, critical sayings, however, was 
the mind of a literary artist and the heart of a genuine 
Christian. In the first chapter there are at least eight 
fine figures of speech, of which ‘‘As the flower of the 
grass he shall pass away”’ and “Like unto a man be- 
holding his natural face in a mirror” are good exam- 
ples. There is just enough good-natured cynicism to 
hold the reader’s attention. In this respect it reminds 
us of the book of Ecclesiastes, which has always been — 
a favorite of literary men. It is full of imagery, yet 
practical. It is a thoroughly human book, adapted to | 
the man in the street, nevertheless its style is chaste | 
and beautiful. 

136 


A CHRISTIAN CRITIC 137 


The genuine Christian appeal of James comes out in 
2:1, “Hold not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ with 
respect to persons’’; 5: 7, “Be patient therefore, breth- 
ren, until the coming of the Lord’’; and 5:8, “The 
coming of the Lord is at hand.’’ However, apart from 
these few references to Jesus there is little to distin- 
guish James from an Old Testament book. “The name 
of Jesus is hardly mentioned. His life and death, the 
cross and forgiveness, find no place here at all. This 
made Luther call it an ‘epistle of straw,’ by which he 
meant that it contained no grain by which the soul 
can live.” 


2. Its Modern Appeal. 


The sharp criticism of snobbishness in this little tract 
(2: 1-9) makes it popular with modern readers. Our 
age enjoys the book that condemns church officials and 
ushers who say to the poor man, “ You can’t sit in these 
front pews; stand up in the back of the room or sit on 
the floor.” 

We also like the note of social justice in 5:4 and 
the pungent remarks on the need of controlling the 
tongue: ‘The tongue, though small, is as powerful as a 
little rudder on a great ship, and as dangerous as a 
little fire in a great forest”’ (8: 1-12). 

In these days, when we hear so much of psycho- 
therapeutics, 5: 14-15 is interesting to many minds. 
There are also some good hints on vain professions: 
“What is the good of a man’s saying he has faith, if 
he has no good deeds to show? Can faith save him? 
If some brother or sister has not clothes and has not 
food enough for a day, and one of you says to them, 
‘Good-by, keep warm and have plenty to eat,’ with- 
out giving them the necessaries of life, what good does 


138 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


it do? So faith by itself, if it has no good deeds to 
show, is dead.” James is here not criticising Paul’s 
doctrine of faith but condemning an abuse of that 
doctrine. 


3. Why Was James So Long Refused a Place among 
the Sacred Books? 


Kusebius, 325 A. D., states that James was among 
the disputed books of the New Testament. It was not 
in the accepted list in Rome about 190 A. D. This is 
shown by the fact that the Muratorian Canon, which 
gives a list of the New Testament books recognized 
in Rome at that time, omits James. As this is the 
oldest known list of these sacred books, its omission of 
James is regarded as important evidence. It prob- 
ably signifies that the book was not regarded as apos- 
tolic or authoritative in the early church. Bishop 
Jerome, 390 A. D., wrote that the authorship was not 
definitely known, but that the book was gradually 
gaining authority. 

Was James too Jewish to be acceptable to the early 
Christians? It mentions Jesus by name only once. It 
uses the term synagogue for church (2:2). It is like 
Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in thought, having many 
striking parallels with those books. Its form, too, is 
proverbial and characterized by maxims, paradoxes, 
and little essays. More offensive still is its criticism of 
a type of piety which is strong in faith and weak in 
works. In reading James we are reminded of the criti- 
cal tone of the ‘‘ Preacher”’ in Ecclesiastes. 

Was the book too Greek in tone for the early Chris- 
tians? It has been described as a Stoic diatribe. Greek 
preachers of philosophy used to stand on the street or 
in the market-place and give discourses or disputations 


A CHRISTIAN CRITIC 139 


on morals in many cities of the ancient world. “ Paul 
at Athens must have presented himself to his hearers 
as just such a preacher as those to whose diatribes they 
were accustomed to listen; and such must have been 
very generally the case with the early Christian mis- 
sionaries. It is not strange that the diatribe had a 
very profound and far-reaching effect on the forms of 
Christian literature for centuries, that its influence is 
clearly traceable in the epistles of Paul, and that it 
serves to explain much, both of the form and the con- 
tent, of the Epistle of James” (Ropes, International 
Critical Commentary on St. James, page 12). 

It is possible that Martin Luther’s objection to the 
book was based on the same peculiarities that offended 
the early church fathers. Luther called it “an epistle 
of straw” because it seemed to exalt works above 
faith. Whatever the reason for the unpopularity of 
James among early Christians, the fact is that it was 
so unpopular that it only won its way at first in the 
Syriac translation, and was not recognized as sacred 
scripture in the Western Church until nearly 400 A. D. 


4. Main Thoughts and Characteristics. 


While James, like Hebrew wisdom and Greek dia- 
tribe, hastens on rapidly from topic to topic and seems 
to be a collection of disconnected paragraphs, yet there 
is a certain unity and progress of thought. The main 
idea is that conduct is the principal thing in life. First, 
the author considers what one’s conduct should be in 
time of trial (1: 1-18). Second, action is declared to be 
the test of character rather than talk (1: 19-27). 
Third, it is bad conduct to favor the rich as against 
the poor. No amount of faith will excuse that; indeed, 
genuine faith is revealed by good conduct (2: 1-26). 


140 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Fourth, the tongue is a revealer of character (3 : 1-12). 
Fifth, one’s wisdom is shown by his daily conduct, his 
attitude to pleasure, his submission to God’s will, and 
kindness to the poor (3 : 18-5: 6). Sixth, an exhortation 
to patience, prayer, and service in view of the second 
coming of Christ (5: 7-20). 

Two characteristics may be mentioned: James hates 
shams of every kind and demands reality. He criticises 
those who profess and fail to act and those who set 
themselves up to be teachers. All through the book is 
the note of common sense. At the same time this critic 
of shams is undoubtedly a Christian. While he believes 
that conduct is the chief thing in life, he regards the 
religion of Jesus as the best means of securing good 
conduct. This is shown by the strong expression ‘‘our 
glorious Lord Jesus Christ”? in 2:2 and the emphasis 
on prayer in 5: 13-18. 


5. Environment and Purpose. 


It is the most difficult book in the New Testament 
for which to provide an appropriate historical setting. 
The heading does not help, for no one knows which 
James it was, and the twelve tribes must be a figura- 
tive expression for Christians in general. We may find, 
however, two clews that help us place it in early Chris- 
tian history in the words “trial” and “faith.” The 
trials which test faith of which the author makes so 
much in the first chapter may be the persecutions of 
Domitian. If so, the persons addressed are evidently 
remote in place and time from the worst persecutions. 
We could imagine the Christians in Cesarea about 100 
A. D. as fulfilling these conditions. 

Moreover, the condemnation of faith apart from 
works may be an allusion to the tendency in many 


A CHRISTIAN CRITIC 141 


churches to exalt theory above practice. The later 
books of the New Testament, the Fourth Gospel, the 
epistles of John, Jude, Timothy, and Titus, all em- 
phasize the importance of correct belief. It may well 
be that James is a protest against this growing custom 
to think of Christianity as a theory rather than a 
life. , 

The author shows acquaintance with I Peter (1:1, 
6, 23, 24; 2:1; 4:8; 5:5, 9), and implies a period 
in church life far removed from the beginnings. We 
may then think of him as in Caesarea, writing shortly 
after 100 A. D. for the sake of emphasizing good con- 
duct in a day when the church was tempted to substi- 
tute correct belief for good conduct. ‘A lax worldly 
mindedness and unfruitful theological wrangling threat- 
ened to destroy the religious life.” 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What shows that the author of James was a man of action? 

. Give evidence that the book was written by a Christian. 

. Three wan penne of the fact that it appeals to modern 
minds. 

. Prove that James was not acceptable to many early Chris- 
tians. 

. What is the main thought of the book? 

. Name the probable date and place of writing. 


oon He WN 


Oral Discussion 


. Read James aloud and explain three or more figures of speech 
in the book. 

. Why has the book been called cynical? 

. How did James illustrate the power of the tongue? 

. How did James differ from Paul in his view of faith? 

. Find a discussion of the labor problem in James, and note 
whether the description applies to our own day. 


OrPwhN 


142 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Special Assignments 

1. Write an imaginary sketch of the author of James. Compare 
the sketch of Koheleth in the Cambridge Bible Commen- 
tary on Ecclesiastes. 

2. Read a Stoic diatribe of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, or Seneca 
and compare it with James. 

3. The city of Caesarea as rebuilt by Herod the Great. See 
Bailey and Kent, Hebrew Commonwealth, p. 338, and the 
Encyclopedia Britannica, 4: 953. 


Part 5 
THE PERIOD OF THE BEGINNINGS OF HERESY 


CHAPTER XXIV 


THE FOURTH GOSPEL: ITS HISTORICAL 
SETTING AND PURPOSE 


1. A Group of Late Books. 

Nine books of the New Testament are so different 
from all the others in thought and historical allusions 
that they may be placed in a group by themselves. 
They are the Fourth Gospel, the three epistles of John, 
the two epistles to Timothy, Titus, Jude, and IT Peter. 

Three of the marks that distinguish them from the 
rest of the New Testament are the allusions to a 
Greek environment, to heresies that are endangering 
the purity of Christian doctrine, and to an elaborate 
organization of the churches. Examples of these allu- 
sions are found in the Fourth Gospel, 1: 1 (Greek word 
logos), in I John 2: 18, 19 (beginnings of sectarian divi- 
sions), and in I Timothy 3: 1-13 (elaborate directions 
concerning church officers). These and many other 
eharacteristics of these nine documents point to a date 
beyond the first century and to circumstances far re- 
moved from the time of Jesus and Paul. 


2. A New Stage in Christian History. 


Paul partly freed Christianity from the old Jewish 
forms, yet at the time of his death it was still a ques- 
143 


144 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


tion whether the Jews would be converted, give up 
their old forms, and retain the leadership in the new 
religion. But this was not to be. The successors to 
Peter and Paul were to be Greeks and Romans, and 
the centres of Christianity in the second century were 
to be Ephesus and Rome. 

This involved a hastening of that process which had 
already begun in the writing of Mark and Luke and 
the letters of Paul. This process was the restatement 
of Jesus’ religion so that it would be better understood 
by the Greek world. Jesus and all his Apostles were 
Jews, and Paul and all the writers of the New Testa- 
ment, except perhaps Luke, were Jews. This meant 
that not only the phraseology but also the whole 
thought-world of the early writings of Christianity was 
Jewish in its coloring. The leaders of Christianity saw 
that it was necessary to state their religion in terms of 
the Greek civilization, if the teachings of Jesus were to 
win that new world into which the gospel had now 
entered. This explains the great difference between the 
Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. 

Moreover, in this new era heresies sprang up that 
threatened to pervert or destroy the pure religion of 
Jesus. This explains several features in the nine books 
that we locate in the first half of the second century. 
Also, the churches had developed the need of officials 
with authority to stop heresy and to insist upon the 
keeping of the ‘“‘faith.”’ 


3. Occasion of the Fourth Gospel. 


At Ephesus there was a large Christian church which 
was a sort of mother church for several Christian 
groups in that region. The story of Jesus was familiar, 
but no formal attempt had yet been made to adapt the 


THE FOURTH GOSPEL 145 


Jewish story to the Greek philosophy and to the popu- 
lar ideas prevalent in these Greek lands. To meet the 
demands of the new era an unknown writer who was 
thoroughly versed in the Synoptic Gospels and in the 
letters of Paul wrote the Gospel which the church after- 
ward called by the name of John, although the be- 
loved disciple probably died forty years before the 
book was written. 

It is useless to discuss the authorship. Some hold 
that the beloved disciple lived to a very old age and, as 
the revered Bishop of Ephesus, prepared this beauti- 
ful statement of the life of Jesus. Others find it equally 
plausible that the Presbyter John, mentioned in later 
writers, was the head of the churches in Asia Minor, 
and on the basis of certain material that had been 
handed down from the Apostle John wrote the Fourth 
Gospel that Christianity might find acceptance with a 
people who no longer understood the Jewish phrases 
and the Jewish philosophy of life. Whoever the author 
was, the reason for his work is very clear. He saw the 
need of a new presentation of the living Christ to a 
civilization that had moved away from Old Testament 
forms of thought toward Greek conceptions of life. 


4. Purpose of the Author. 


The author states his purpose in 20: 31, ‘‘These are 
written that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, 
the Son of God, and that believing you may have life 
in his name.”’ In keeping with the intellectual inter- 
ests of the time the author desired to emphasize belief 
in the Messiah as the revelation of God. To show that 
this revelation is in harmony with current thought he 
introduced his subject by saying that the Messiah was 
the Word in human form. “Word” was a translation 


146 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


of the Greek logos, which meant, in the philosophy 
taught in Ephesus, the reason that controls the uni- 
verse. This invisible reason that created and main- 
tained the world took human form in order that men 
might believe. So at once the Messiah is described in 
terms that would be understood. A further hint of the 
author’s aim in writing is found in his emphasis on the 
fact that Jesus actually took bodily form (1:14) and 
in the clear statement that John the Baptist was not 
the Christ (1: 19-27). In Asia Minor there were two 
Christian sects that were in error on these two points, 
and this Gospel was meant to unify Christians by ex- 
plaining away these heretical notions (I John 4: 2, 3, 
and Acts 19: 1-7). 


5. Sketch of the Argument. 


At the very beginning John the Baptist points out 
Jesus as the Lamb of God, which to those who knew 
Isaiah 53 would signify the Messiah. By his miracle at 
Cana and his divine authority manifested in the cleans- 
ing of the temple, the Messiah proves that he is from 
heaven, where he lived before he came to earth, where 
indeed he existed before the time of Abraham (8: 58). 
He told Nicodemus that this new revelation from 
heaven meant a new life for men. Only those who ob-— 
tained this life from above through Jesus really pos- 
sessed the quality of life necessary for membership in 
the Kingdom of God. God gave his only Son that men 
might save themselves from perishing by believing in 
him. 

In the parable of the vine in chapter 15 the author 
shows that the way to acquire this new life was by 
mystic contact with the Messiah. By loving, obedient 
relationship to Jesus, the believer received the power 


THE FOURTH GOSPEL 147 


to bear the fruit which proved that he had spiritual 
life. The branch had been grafted into the vine and 
the life-giving sap had circulated through the new 
member, making it one with the parent stock. 

In the wonderful prayer in John 17, Jesus taught 
that he shared this spiritual life with the Father, and 
that all who believed in him would also be one with 
the Father. So the doctrine becomes. clear. Jesus came 
to earth to bring to men that eternal life which is the 
highest good. Those who believe in Jesus as the Son 
of God receive this life and thus enter into a glorious 
unity with the Father and the Son in the enjoyment of 
eternal life. The world that rejects Jesus does not 
“know” God and so fails to possess eternal life. This 
is the philosophy of Christianity which the author pre- 
sented to the Greek world and which was accepted by 
the church of the second century. 


6. Comparison with the First Three Gospels. 


It is sufficient merely to list here the chief ways in 
which the Fourth Gospel differs from the Synoptics in 
order that we may see how far away from the simple 
history of Jesus the Ephesian author was led by his 
purpose. 

In place of the Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ birth, 
baptism, and temptation, the Fourth Gospel substi- 
tutes the theory of the Logos. The scene of Jesus’ life 
is almost wholly Jerusalem and Judea, while in the 
first three Gospels it was chiefly Galilee. From the 
beginning Jesus announces himself as the Messiah, 
while in the other Gospels this is kept secret until 
toward the end. The parables have nearly all disap- 
peared along with the Sermon on the Mount, and we 
miss from this later Gospel the teachings concerning 


148 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


forgiveness, love of enemies, and the importance of the 
Kingdom of God. Instead of these we have long dis- 
courses, very different from those in Matthew, dealing 
with the origin, nature, and work of the Messiah. At 
the Last Supper the Fourth Gospel reports long ad- 
dresses and a prayer. 

In the main the Fourth Gospel agrees with the Sy- 
noptics regarding the trial, Crucifixion, and Resurrec- 
tion, but differs widely in the order of other events, in 
the miracles, and in the description of the conflict with 
the Pharisees. It adds the miracle at Cana and the 
raising of Lazarus, and places the cleansing of the tem- 
ple in the second week of Jesus’ public career rather 
than in the last week. It omits the statement of Jesus’ 
growth in wisdom and favor with God and men, the 
agony in the garden, and other Synoptic suggestions of 
his humanity and presents Jesus as the perfect Son of 
God from the beginning. 

Our author’s failure to follow strictly the historical 
events in the life of Christ is explained by the fact that 
he tries to find a deeper meaning in all the external 
incidents. ‘The history resolves itself at every point 
into a kind of allegory which cannot be rightly appre- 
hended without a key. In this way we must explain 
the liberties, strange to our modern mind, which the 
writer continually takes with historical facts. The 
event as it happened was to him the adumbration, nec- 
essarily dim and imperfect, of a spiritual idea. His 
interest is in the idea, which he regards as the one 
essential thing—the ‘truth’ or inward reality of the 
fact. He thinks it not only permissible but necessary 
to modify the fact, so as to bring out more fully or 
emphatically the idea at the heart of it” (Scott, The 
Fourth Gospel). 


THE FOURTH GOSPEL 149 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


What books belong to the fifth period of New Testament 
history ? 

Name three or more distinguishing marks of these books. 

What new stage of development did.Christianity reach in the 
second century? 

Describe the occasion and purpose of the Fourth Gospel. 

What Greek philosophical term did the author employ in 
order to connect his conception of Jesus with the dominant 
ideas in Ephesus? 

. How does the Fourth Gospel differ from the Synoptics in its 

treatment of the Messiahship of Jesus? 
. Name six other ways in which they differ. 


ee 


aI 


Oral Discussion 


. Name some of the churches that may have considered Ephe- 
sus as the mother church. See Revelation 1: 4-11. 

What were some of the false views that threatened Christian- 
ity in these churches? 

Give a brief outline of the philosophy of the ‘‘new life” in the 
Fourth Gospel. 


eee ee 


Special Assignments 


ay 


. The heresy called Docetism. See Encyclopedia Britannica. 

2. Give the evidence for the existence of an early heretical sect 
based on the teachings of John the Baptist. See Acts 
19: 1-7 and commentaries. 

3. Compare the terms ‘‘eternal life” in the Fourth Gospel and 

“Kingdom of God” in Luke, and consider whether they 

stand for the same conception. 


CHAPTER X XV : 
DRAMATIC PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL — 


A NEW STUDY OF THE CONTENTS OF THE FOURTH 
GOSPEL 
Introduction. 


If one reads through the Fourth Gospel at one sit- 
ting he is impressed with its dramatic features. The 
prologue pictures the Son of God coming from heaven > 
to introduce a light upon earth which the darkness — 
never could put out. This light was the knowledge of — 
God. This knowledge of God is eternal life to all who © 
will receive it. Then follows a series of events called — 
signs which prove that Jesus was from heaven. The 
element of struggle so essential to drama is furnished 
by the Jews, who are pictured as eager to kill the Mes- 
siah. The personnel consists of the Forerunner, Nico- 
demus, the Woman of Samaria, Mary and Martha, 
Pilate, and others who are described in situations 
chosen from the Gospel narratives, but not all the ma- 
terial in the other Gospels is used. Indeed, very few 
scenes are selected by the author of the Fourth Gospel, 
only those situations evidently that are adapted to his 
dramatic unfolding of the redemptive plan. As we — 
have observed in a previous chapter, the author omit-— 
ted all the striking parables of Jesus and also the Ser- | 
mon on the Mount. Peter and the disciples are in the. 
story, but they are much less conspicuous than in — 
Matthew, Mark, and Luke. | 

150 


DRAMATIC PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL 151 


Jerusalem and Judea furnish the stage for this drama 
of redemption, although in reality Jesus’ life was spent 
almost wholly in Galilee. Not only is the stage itself a 
mystery, but Jesus’ appearances on it are sometimes 
very mysterious. “Although the doors were locked, 
Jesus came in and stood among them.” This sense of 
the unearthly and spiritual pervades the whole Gospel. 
“Tt is a perfect web of enigma, and yet the web is lost 
in the dazzling light which breaks through it... . 
The book affects our imagination like a transparent 
symbol of precious eternal truths. We forget the out- 
ward narrative and lose ourselves in its deeper signifi- 
cance. The characters appear in a strange twilight. 
We neither see them come nor go, we trace in them no 
development; they suddenly appear and as suddenly 
vanish. They move as if in the air. They affect us like 
the stained windows of some dim cathedral as the 
light passes through them” (Von Soden, Early Chris- 
tian Literature). 

This book has suffered much from the piecemeal 
method of reading. Its tone is so devotional and its 
short sayings so quotable that few have gotten beyond 
reading short sections. Thus the message of the whole 
has been lost in the enjoyment of its parts. It is a 
memorable experience to read the whole production at 
one sitting. In this way alone will the reader grasp 
the grandeur of the drama and the splendid adaptation 
of the work to the Greek world of the second century. 


Prologue 


Jesus, the Son of God, comes to earth and takes hu- 
man form to play the part of the Messiah promised in 
the Old Testament. He is Life and Light to mankind. 
1: 1-18. 


152 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Act I 


Public Presentation of the Messiah, 1: 19-2: 25 
Scene 1. Place: Bank of the River Jordan. 
Persons: John the Baptist, the Priests and Levites. 
Crowds have gathered about John, thinking that he 

is the long-expected Messiah. When officially ques- 
tioned by the priests and Levites, John admits that he 
is only the forerunner of the Messiah. 1: 19-28. 

Scene 2. Place: Same as before. 

Persons: Jesus, John, and some of John’s disciples. 

Jesus appears walking toward John. John points to 
him and with awe says: “Behold the Lamb of God.” 

Scene 3. Place: Same as before. 

Persons: Same as before. 

The Messiah wins his first disciples (1: 35-41). 

Scene 4. Place: Cana of Galilee. 

Persons: Jesus, Jesus’ new disciples—Andrew, Peter, 
John the Beloved; Philip, Nathaniel; Mary (Mother of 
Jesus), and the Wedding Party. 

Jesus shows that he is the Messiah by the miracle of 
the wine (2: 1-11). 

Scene 5. Place: The Temple in Jerusalem. 

Persons: Jesus and his Disciples, Dealers in sacrificial 
animals, Money-changers, and Jewish opponents. 

Jesus as a sign of his Messianic authority drives the 
money-changers and the dealers out of the temple and 
orders them not to turn his Father’s house into a mar- 
ket-place (2: 12-25). 


Act IT 


Testimony of Persons of Three Nationalities to the 
Messiahship of Jesus, 3: 1-4: 54 


Scene 1. Place: A house in Jerusalem. 


DRAMATIC PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL 153 


Persons: Jesus and Rabbi Nicodemus, a prominent 
member of the Sanhedrin. 

Nicodemus, convinced by Jesus’ miracles that he is 
from God, visits the Master to get further light on his 
teachings. Jesus makes it very clear that he is the 
Messiah on whom men must believe if they would pos- 
sess eternal life (3: 1-36, except 22-30, which should 
directly follow 2:12). 

Scene 2. Place: Jacob’s Well at Sychar in Samaria. 

Persons: Jesus, a Woman of Samaria and other Sa- 
maritans. 

Jesus tells the woman that God requires a spiritual 
worship and that the places and forms of the old Jewish 
religion are no longer necessary. Jesus announces him- 
self as the Messiah, and the Samaritans are convinced 
that he is the savior of the world (4: 1-42). 

Scene 3. Place: Cana of Galilee. 

Persons: Jesus and a Roman officer. 

Jesus cures the officer’s son of a fever, and this mira- 
cle convinces the Roman that Jesus is what he claims 
to be (4: 48-54). 

Thus in three scenes we have a Jew, some Samari- 
tans, and a family of Romans testifying to Jesus’ Mes- 
siahship. 


Act III 


Tragic Rejection of the Messiah by His Own People, 
the Jews (5: 1-12: 50) 

(Note the real climax of the act in 11:51, where the 
High Priest is inspired to predict the Messiah’s death 
as part of God’s plan for the world.) 

Scene 1. Place: Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. 

Persons: Jesus, sick man, and hostile Jews. 

Jesus heals the sick man and on the ground of this 


154 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


miracle asserts, in a long discussion with the Jews, his 
equality with God (5: 1-47). 

Scene 2. Place: A grassy plain north of the Sea of 
Galilee, with a hill at one side. 

Persons: Jesus, his Disciples, and a multitude of men 
and women. 

Jesus miraculously feeds the multitude with five 
loaves and two fishes. Perceiving that he is the Mes- 
siah, the people try to crown him as king. The discus- 
sion with the hostile Jews takes place in Capernaum 
the next day, during which Jesus declares that he is 
the bread of life. ‘ Whoever lives on this bread will live 
forever” (6: 1-71). 

Scene 3. Place: Temple in Jerusalem. 

Persons: Jesus, the crowd, hostile Jews. 

This scene opens with an unfriendly remark by 
Jesus’ brothers in Nazareth: “‘ You ought to leave here 
and go to Judea.” ... “If you are going to do these 
things, let the world see you.” 

The scene closes with the abrupt departure (8 : 59) of 
Jesus from his enemies in the temple. It is remarkable 
that the next two scenes open and close in a similar 
way, each having a special introduction and each clos- 
ing with Jesus’ sudden disappearance (10:39 and 
12:37). This is clearly not simply a narrative of the 
incidents in Jesus’ life, but a special arrangement of 
some experiences of Jesus for dramatic effect. 

A disputation in the temple on the origin of the Mes- 
siah, during which Jesus said that he was the light of 
the world, and that he came from heaven, where he 
existed before Abraham was born. They pick up stones 
to throw at him, but he disappears (7 : 1-8: 59). 

Scene 4. Place: In Jerusalem, near the Pool of Siloam, 
and afterward in the temple. 


DRAMATIC PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL 155 


Persons: Jesus, the Blind Man, a crowd of people, 
and the hostile Jews. 

Jesus cures a blind man on the Sabbath, and in a 
long discussion with his enemies reasserts his Messiah- 
ship. They try to arrest him, but he suddenly disap- 
pears (9: 1-10: 42). 

Scene-5. Place: Bethany and gerusalees. 

Persons: Jesus, Mary and Martha, people of Beth- 
any, and the hostile Jews. 

Jesus raises Lazarus from the grave, and afterward 
in Jerusalem holds an argument with the Jews con- 
cerning the work of the Messiah. Two interruptions 
occur that add great interest to the drama: (1) A voice 
from heaven (12:28) and (2) the request of certain 
Greeks that they might see Jesus (12:21). The Jews 
refuse to believe and Jesus disappears from them (11: 
1-12: 50). 


Act IV 


Scenes Illustrating the Deeper Meanings of the New 
Religion. Jesus Reveals Himself Intimately to His 
Disciples (13 : 1-17 : 26) 

Scene 1. Place: The upper room of a house in Jeru- 
salem. 

Persons: Jesus and his Twelve Disciples. 

Time: Thursday evening. 

Jesus washes the feet of his disciples as an example 
of humility, and by his miraculous foreknowledge points 
out that Judas will betray him and Peter will deny 
him (13 : 1-30). 

Scene 2. Place: The same as before. 

Persons: The same, except that Judas has gone out 
into the night. 

Jesus’ farewell addresses, telling about heaven (14: 


156 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


1-14), the Holy Spirit as an abiding friend and guide 
(14: 15-31), the mystic relation existing between Jesus 
and true Christians (15: 1-27), and the Holy Spirit as 
a permanent representation of the Messiah. The dis- 
ciples declare themselves convinced that Jesus is the 
Messiah (14 : 1-16: 33). 

Scene 3. Place: Same as before. 

Persons: Same as before. 

Jesus prays for his disciples and for those whom the 
disciples may win (17: 1-26). 

Act V 

The Crucifixion and the Resurrection (18 : 1-20: 31) 

Scene 1. Place: Gethsemane. 

Persons: Jesus and the Eleven Disciples, Judas, the 
officers of the High Priest, and a band of soldiers. 

Judas leads the enemies of Jesus, who are carrying 
lanterns, torches, and weapons to Gethsemane, and 
accomplishes the arrest (18: 1-11). 

Scene 2. Place: Palaces of Annas, Caiaphas, and 
Pilate. 

Persons: Jesus, Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, Peter, offi- 
cials, and attendants. 

Jesus is tried and convicted on the charge that he 
claimed to be King of the Jews. Peter denies thrice 
over that he ever knew Jesus (18: 12-40). 

Scene 3. Place: Pilate’s Hall of Judgment and Gol- 
gotha. 

Persons: Jesus, the two Marys, John, the Jews, 
soldiers, and attendants. 

They scourge Jesus and put a crown of thorns on his 
head. Pilate tells the Jews that Jesus is innocent; if 
they want to crucify him, they will have to take the 
responsibility. Jesus reminded Pilate that the power 


DRAMATIC PRESENTATION OF THE GOSPEL 157 


which Pilate exercised was given to him from above. 
This was all part of a divine plan. Jesus is then led 
away, bearing his own cross, to Golgotha, and cruci- 
fied. The body was placed in Joseph’s tomb (19 : 1-42). 

Scene 4. Place: The tomb. 

Persons: Mary Magdalene, John, Peter, the Risen 
Lord. 

Mary finds the tomb empty. Peter and John go in- 
side and verify her words. Jesus, standing in the gar- 
den near by, speaks to Mary, but forbids her to touch 
him (20: 1-18). 

Scene 5. Place: A house in Jerusalem. 

Persons: The Disciples. 

Jesus suddenly appears in the room, although the 
disciples had locked the door. Jesus gave them power 
to forgive sins. The book closes with the statement 
that it was written to prove that Jesus was the Son of 
God. There is no account of the ascension of Jesus 
(20: 19-81). 


Epilogue 


_ This records the appearance of Jesus to Peter and 
other disciples at the Sea of Galilee, and the charge to 
Peter to be a good pastor, and also the warning that he 
is to die the death of a martyr (21: 1-25). 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 
1. What are some of the elements of drama in the Fourth Gos- 


pel? 

2. Read through the Gospel at one sitting, using this chapter 
as a guide, and report six or more mysterious or super- 
natural occurrences. 

3. Give some evidences that the main purpose of the author is 
to prove that Jesus is the Messiah. 


158 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Oral Discussion 


1. Why may 11:51 be regarded as the real climax of Act III? 
2. Did the author plan to have Scenes 3, 4, and 5 in Act III in 
any sense parallel? 


Special Assignments 


1. Compare the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics with reference 
to the ascension of Jesus. 

2. It is said that the great ideas of this Gospel are revelation, 
life, light, love, truth, freedom. Find passages that de- 
scribe these ideas. 

3. Holman Hunt’s Light of the World gives an allegorical illus- 
tration of John 8:12. Name some of the leading symbols 
in this painting. 


CHAPTER XXVI 
THE GOSPEL OF THE LIVING CHRIST 


THE MESSAGE OF THE FOURTH GOSPEL 


1. Estimates of the Fourth Gospel. 


Modern attempts to solve the historical problems 
connected with the Fourth Gospel have obscured tem- 
porarily its importance and its greatness. E. F. Scott 
declares that “it would be difficult to overestimate 
the influence of the Fourth Gospel on the subsequent 
history of Christianity. . . . It was due in large mea- 
sure to the influence of his Gospel that Christianity 
remained true to its original character, amidst the 
many disturbing forces of the second and third cen- 
turies. At a time when the primitive tradition was in 
danger of perishing, this great teacher reasserted it, 
and embodied it in new and living forms. He gathered 
up into one final utterance the whole message of the 
Apostolic Age. The Synoptic history, the theology of 
Paul, the hopes and beliefs of the early disciples were 
all harmoniously blended in his Gospel, and became 
the lasting inheritance of the Gentile church.” 

G. Currie Martin called it “the greatest of the books 
of the New Testament.”’ Robert F. Horton says: “ Un- 
counted numbers of human souls, like Louis Harms or 
the Japanese Joseph Neesima, have, after searching 
and struggling, entered into life through reading this 
book. Its miraculous working is always manifest, be- 

159 


160 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


cause it is always possible to find people, and those 
often the most devoted and effectual Christians, who 
were born again by means of this brief, life-giving 
tract.” 


2. The Need of Something More than the Historical 
Christ. 


Harold B. Hunting has given us in his Story of Our 
Bible the following imaginary picture of the discovery 
of the living Christ by the author of the Fourth Gospel. 


The earliest disciples had believed that Jesus would quickly 
return, to judge the wicked, and establish His heavenly 
kingdom. This hope was one of their sweetest joys. Any 
one who has counted the days before the homecoming of 
some dear one can understand how the dreams of those 
Christian disciples were centred on one thing, the coming of 
Jesus. ‘‘Jesus is coming soon. Perhaps he will come to- 
morrow. Come, Lord Jesus.’’ This expectation helped them 
to feel that Jesus was near and real. But the years passed, 
and the decades, and Jesus did not return in visible form. 
. . . They were in danger of losing Jesus altogether. 

This sense of loss was being felt very keenly by many Chris- 
tians about 100 A. D., when John lived in Ephesus. There 
was a time when he himself had felt it. To him, as to others, 
at such times, Jesus was only a wonderful historical charac- 
ter who lived long ago. Gradually, however, there came to 
him a strange experience. He somehow became aware of a 
Presence walking with him day by day. He could not see 
or hear this Presence with his physical senses, yet it was as 
real to him as the solid earth beneath his feet. In times of 
trial and temptation, he could turn to that Presence and 
receive comfort and strength. In moods of sadness the 
thought of that Presence would flash into his mind, like the 
sunshine breaking through the clouds, and all the world 
would again be bright. Every good impulse and true idea 
seemed to him now to be a whisper of that Presence. He had 
rediscovered the living Jesus. ‘‘Jesus is alive.’ At the 
thought his heart was filled with happiness. He could not 
pu proclaim the news to his fellow Christians, “Jesus is 
alive. 

In order to bring home to the men and women of his own time 

this message of the living Christ, John wrote a new account 


THE GOSPEL OF THE LIVING CHRIST 161 


of the life of Jesus. As a means of setting forth this truth, 
the Gospel of John is one of the most original and extraordi- 
nary books ever written. 


3. The New Teaching in the Fourth Gospel. 


The Synoptics had clung to the idea of Jesus’ physi- 
cal return (Mark 13, Matthew 24, Luke 21), but John 
perceives that a Messiah in person can be in one place 
only at one time (12: 24). What the disciples need is a 
Christ, a Helper, a Spirit of Truth who can be with 
them everywhere and all the time. The destruction of 
Jesus’ body will free his Eternal Spirit to be with them, 
and even in them (14: 17). 

In a few weeks after the occurrences of Passion Week, 
the believers became conscious (at Pentecost, Acts 2) 
of a new and powerful presence which they called the 
Holy Spirit. The Fourth Gospel interprets that as the 
“return of Jesus” (14: 18 and 14: 25, 26). Their knowl- 
edge of his actual return, since he was invisible, de- 
pended upon their loving obedience and spiritual per- 
ception. The living Christ could reveal himself only to 
sincere followers of the historic Christ (14: 19-22). A 
comparison of 14: 18, 25, 26 with 15: 26, 27 shows that 
the author identifies the Comforter, and the Spirit of 
Truth with the Holy Spirit, and that the coming of the 
Holy Spirit took the place of the visible return of 
Jesus. 

“He thus transforms the Jewish apocalyptic expec- 
tation into a spiritual experience,’ and thereby makes 
a great contribution to the progress of Christianity. 


4. Passages Radiant with this New Teaching. 


Students should early become familiar with the fol- 
lowing chapters, at least, of the Fourth Gospel, and 


/ 


162 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


the main ideas for which they stand. They may be 
listed briefly as follows: 

Chapter 1 is a unique presentation of Christ as the 
Logos. The definite claim of a heavenly origin for the 
new religion is made in the story of Nicodemus in 
chapter 3. The possibility of sincere worship apart from 
Jerusalem and the temple in chapter 4 is of great im- 
portance because it frees Christianity from all narrow 
associations and makes it a world religion. Chapter 10 
is specially wholesome in its thought of Christianity, as 
producing a richer and broader life in men. Ii calls us 
back from all partial and erroneous views of religion to 
the task of making more worth while the common life 
of mankind. 

One could continue for a long time noting the sig- 
nificant passages in this great book; indeed, it seems 
like unfair discrimination when we select only a few 
chapters. We cannot, however, pass by the following 
sections without asking that they be read aloud: 12: 
24-28; 14: 1-7, 26; 15: 1-7; 16: 12-14; 17:3; 20:31. 


5. Some Important Lessons. 


(1) The Fourth Gospel calls attention to a hidden 
beauty in the universe when it says in 1:9, “There 
came a light into the world.” Principal Jacks, in his 
Lost Radiance of the Christian Religion, writes, it is ‘‘a 
light that burns within the heart of the world itself, 
transfiguring the whole length and breadth of exist- 
ence, from what it seems to be to the eye of sense into 
the fulness of its reality—the fitting abode of immortal 
and rejoicing spirits, the Father’s house of many man- 
sions, where music and dancing await the regenerated 
soul, not only the music, to which we listen, but the 
dancing which reproduces the music in the total move- 


THE GOSPEL OF THE LIVING CHRIST 163 


ment of our lives. This is what I mean, and nothing 
less than this, when I speak of the radiance of the 
Christian religion—not an adventitious quality, nor a 
mere alleviation or adornment of an otherwise stern 
and uncompromising code of duty, but an essential and 
all-pervading energy. . . . It is a Joyous energy, hav- 
ing a centre in the soul of man. It is not a foreign prin- 
ciple which has to be introduced into a man from with- 
out; it belongs to the substance and structure of his 
nature; it needs only to be liberated there; and when 
once that is done it takes possession of all the forces of 
his being, repressing nothing, but transfiguring every- 
thing till all his motives and desires are akindled and 
aglow with the fires and energy of that central flame, 
with its love, its peace, its joy.” 

(2) “It lighteth every man” (1: 9). 

In each person there is a divine spark, which means 
that there is a capacity to respond to the divine. This 
explains Jesus’ attitude to every human being, whether 
an innocent little child or a very sinful woman or a 
rich and selfish man. He knew that there was hope 
for every one because that inner spark of goodness 
night be fanned into flame. 


‘‘ All year long upon the stage 
I dance and tumble and do rage 
So furiously, I scarcely see 
The inner and eternal me. 


I have a temple I do not 

Visit, a heart I have forgot, 

A self that I have never met, 

A secret shrine—and yet, and yet— 


This sanctuary of my soul 

Unwitting I keep white and whole, 
Unlatched and lit, if Thou shouldst care 
To enter or to tarry there.” 


164 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


(3) ‘Let not your heart be troubled” (14: 1). 

The world’s greatest need, next after Redemption, is 
consolation. Jesus said, ‘‘Come unto me... and I 
will give you rest.”” The Fourth Gospel has met this 
need better than any other book by its presentation of 
the Messiah. This was recognized by one of the world’s 
greatest musicians. Beethoven composed his Mass in 
D Major while Napoleon was advancing on Vienna; 
when he came to the last chorus—‘‘ Give us peace’’— 
he set the words to a fugue on a theme familiar in 
Handel’s Messiah. This was not accidental, for in this 
time of war he remembered that the one condition of 
human peace was the acceptance of the Messiah, the 
Prince of Peace. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


1. How did the Fourth Gospel preserve the substance of the 
primitive Christian tradition when it was in danger of 
perishing ? 

. How did the author meet the need occasioned by the failure 
of Christ to come again in bodily form? 

. Prove that the author identifies the Spirit of Jesus and the 
Holy Spirit. | 

. How, then, does the historical method of study explain the 
Second Coming of Christ? 

. What is the teaching of (a) John 12: 24-28? (b) 16: 12-14? 


Cro i iGo bo 


Oral Discussion 


. What do you regard as the most important teaching of the 

Fourth Gospel? 

: Ayby ey it be considered the most devotional book of the 

ible 

Does the principle of 12:24 apply to others besides Christ? 

Did the coming of Christ to earth put a new element into the 
universe, or help men discover what was already there? 

. Name the five most popular chapters in the Fourth Gospel. 

What does the mystic meaning of 15: 1~7 mean in terms of 
our daily experience? 


On pO Nf 


THE GOSPEL OF THE LIVING CHRIST 165 


Special Assignments 


1. Read the last few pages of Longfellow’s Children of the Lord’s 
Supper and report to the class passages that remind you 
of the Fourth Gospel. 

2. Find in The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas 4 Kempis, Book I, 
chapter XX, On the Love of Solitude, sentiments contra- 
dictory to the Fourth Gospel. 

3. Write an essay on the ‘‘seven signs” in this Gospel as sym- 
bols, Encyclopédia Britannica, XV, 452, 453. 


CHapter XXVII 
THREE LETTERS OF JOHN 


1. Authorship and Aim of I John. 


I John uses the same great words—Life, Revelation, 
Light, Truth, Love—that we have found in the Fourth 
Gospel. The key thoughts concerning the “world,” 
“union with the Father,” “eternal life,’’ and “keeping 
the commandments” as an evidence that we love God, 
are the same in both books. It is probable, therefore, 
that one author wrote both. 

Moreover, the allusions to the circumstances and 
needs of the people addressed in the letter lead us to 
think of Ephesus and the churches of Asia Minor early 
in the second century as the place and time of writing, 
as in the case of the Gospel. For example, the letter 
insists that the ‘word of life” has been ‘‘seen with our 
eyes” and “touched with our hands.” This was to 
correct the heresy called “‘Docetism” against which the 
Gospel argued in 1:14. This heresy, later included un- 
der the term Gnosticism, a sort of theosophy, taught 
that all matter, including human flesh, was evil, and 
therefore God could not really have become incarnated 
in Jesus. He only “seemed” to be in a human body. 
Some claimed that the divine spirit was in the body of 
Jesus from the baptism until he was about to be cruci- 
fied, but that it would be impossible to think of God 
as in Jesus while on the cross. So disputes arose over 
this question until some people withdrew their mem- 
bership from the church (2: 19). 

166 


THREE LETTERS OF JOHN 167 


This same group, or another like it, was making 
trouble by claiming to have superior knowledge and 
holiness. They kept saying, “I know him” (2:4) and 
““we have not sinned” (1:10). The result was divisions 
in the church and a tendency to regard the sins of the 
flesh as harmless. This made this group popular with 
the “world” (4: 5). 

The aim of the “elder,” who may have been the 
bishop of the church at Ephesus, in writing this tract 
was to combat these two evils so common among 
Greeks everywhere, vain philosophy and sins of the 
flesh. He wants Christians to maintain their good fel- 
lowship and to keep themselves from a state of sinful- 
ness, 


2. The Author’s Method. 


He bases his argument on experience and upon his- 
tory. This is the final test, personal experience. The 
author knows what he is talking about, for his testi- 
mony grows out of personal fellowship with the Father 
and the Son. Nine times (2: 3, 5; 3:16, 19, 24; 4: 2, 6, 
13; 5: 2) in exactly the same words, ‘“‘by this we know,” 
he urges the Christians of Asia to test the truth of the 
religion of Jesus in their own lives. They had lost their 
first love and enthusiasm for Christ and were too ready 
to welcome religious vagaries. He asks them to test 
all theories by the witness of the Holy Spirit and their 
sense of fellowship with the historic Christ. 

His second test is that of history. We have a knowl- 
edge, an assurance of the truth, based upon a long line 
of historic facts. In the Christian gospel the church 
possesses a revelation of God and life which is abso- 
lute. To this they must be true at all costs. The Holy 
Spirit which you received at conversion is still in your 


168 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


hearts and will teach you everything. Keep in close 
fellowship with Christ and you cannot go astray (2: 26, 
27). 


3. The Open Secret. 


It does not require the knowledge of an Initiate, or 
skill in passwords or ‘‘grips”’ to recognize a Christian. 
“‘Eivery one who loves is a child of God and knows God” 
(4:7). Love is the password, and a loving heart rather 
than a philosophical mind is the open sesame to the 
secret of Christianity. Indeed, there is no secret or 
mystery about it. It consists wholly in love to God 
and man, and the beauty of this is that one’s love 
to God is shown by his attitude to man (2:9-11; 
3: 11-16). 

What a wholesome teaching this was to the Greeks! 
It did away with the pride of knowledge and the con- 
ceit of class distinctions and many evils that follow in 
their train. It brought the second-century church back 
to the simple gospel of the Master—love to God and 
neighbor. ‘‘No one who does not love his brother is a 
child of God.” 

Love is the key-note of I John as hope was of I Peter. 
The word “love” is used more than forty times in this 
little book, twenty-four times in one chapter. In two 
places (4: 8 and 16) the author reaches the highest pos- 
sible conception of religion by the expression ‘‘God is 
love.”’ “The statement seems to glide out so naturally 
and inevitably that the reader hardly notices how it 
has changed the whole aspect of heaven and earth, and 
the whole relation between God and man. ... The 
- truth was quivering and vibrating through every fact 
and teaching of the Gospel, but it was given to this 
writer to utter it for the first time” (R. F. Horton). 


THREE LETTERS OF JOHN 169 


This alone gives this beautiful little letter a high place 
in the list of the world’s great books. Holtzmann says 
of this idea of God, “It opens the way for an altogether 
new presentation of religion based on the facts of moral 
life.”’ 


4. Two Little Notes by the Same Author. 


While these short letters do not have much of any 
religious value, yet, ‘‘like drops of water under a micro- 
scope,” they reveal many facts of the life of the churches 
in Asia Minor. The author of each is called the “ Elder’ 
and we may adopt the common opinion that he also 
wrote I John and the Fourth Gospel. All these books 
may be assigned to the first quarter of the second cen- 
tury. 

II John is addressed to the ‘‘elect lady and her chil- 
dren” by the Bishop of Ephesus, who at the close (verse 
13) says the ‘‘children of your elect sister wish to be 
remembered to you.” This “elect lady” is evidently 
one of the neighboring churches to which the sister 
church of Ephesus sends greeting. The writer exhorts 
the members to beware of the heresy that would rob’ 
them of Christ, for if they lose Christ they lose God. 
They should not even be courteous to the heretics 
(8-11). 

In III John the Elder writes to Gaius, a prominent 
member of the same church, and asks him to be hos- 
pitable to some missionaries who are travelling through 
Asia preaching the gospel. He warns Gaius against 
Diotrephes, who is hostile to the Elder, and who refused 
to entertain these workers and is threatening with 
trouble those who welcome them. Demetrius, men- 
tioned in verse 12, was probably the leader of the mis- 
sionaries and bearer of the letter, 


170 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


5. Three Lessons. 


Experience is the best teacher in religion. I John 
says we have heard, seen, and touched, and so we feel 
sure (1: 1-3); keep progressing, the author suggests 
(2: 27), on the basis of your past experience. Like the 
blind man in the Gospel, he could declare, “One thing 
I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” 

“They were all doctors of renown 
The great men of a famous town 
With deep brows wrinkled, broad and wise; 
Beneath their wide phylacteries, 
The wisdom of the East was theirs; 
And honor crowned their silver hairs. 
The man they jeered and laughed to scorn, 
Was unlearned, poor, and humbly born, 
But he knew better far than they, 
What came to him that Sabbath Day. 
And what the Christ had done for him 
He knew and not the Sanhedrin.” 
—John Hay. 


The great need of the world is love—and yet more 
love. Chapter 4 of the first epistle is remarkable for 
its discussion of “‘the greatest thing in the world.” 
Henry Drummond found that the thing which im- 
pressed the natives of Africa most in their dealings with 
Mr. Livingstone was his love. He says: ‘‘In the heart 
of Africa, among the great lakes, I have come across 
black men and women who remembered the only white 
man they ever saw before—David Livingstone; and as 
-you cross his footsteps in that dark continent, men’s 
faces light up as they speak of the kind doctor who 
passed there years ago. They could not understand 
him; but they felt the love that beat in his heart.” 

Warning against factions and lack of good fellow- 
ship in the church, II and III John will not have been 
written in vain if they show the beginnings of church 


THREE LETTERS OF JOHN 171 


factions and sectarian divisions so clearly that they 
will remind us of the evil results of these things. 


Oooo be 


an e WOH 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. Two reasons for thinking that the author of the Fourth 


Gospel also wrote I John. 


. What was the need of a letter like I John? 
. What is the reason for using the expression “by this we 


know’? 

What simple doctrine does I John oppose to the mysterious 
theories of the heresies? 

wey Hh the significance of the new statement, ‘God is 
ove 


. What is the chief value of IT and III John? 


Oral Discussion 


Who was the “‘Elder” referred to in II and III John? Kent, 
Work and Teachings of the Apostles, 293-295. 

What reaction usually follows the claim of superior knowledge 
and holiness? 


. Show that I John calls the people back from theory to facts. 


What is one of the tasks of the Holy Spirit? 


. How many times is the word ‘‘love”’ used in I John? 
. What is the most important teaching of the three letters of 


John? 
Special Assignments 


. The Greek work Gnosis, which means knowledge, is the root 


of the term Gnosticism, the name of the chief heresy among 
the churches of Asia Minor. How many times is ‘‘know” 
or ‘‘knowledge” used in I John, and why is it used so 
many times? 


. Did denominations have their origin in I John 2:19? Discuss 


two main reasons for denominationalism. 


Cuaprer XXVIII 
THE LETTERS TO TIMOTHY AND TITUS 


1. Paul Quoted Half a Century after His Death. 


Paul had left short letters or fragments of his corre- 
spondence besides the more important epistles like 
Romans. Fifty years after his death the churches were 
in great need of authoritative statements of belief, as 
we see from II Timothy 3:15. Not only was there a 
demand for a creed, but also for a more elaborate 
church organization to guard the true faith and to en- 
force uniformity of belief. So these fragments from 
Paul’s hand were embodied in the pastoral letters 
which, according to the author, contained what Paul 
would have said to this new generation. It is possible 
to regard II Timothy 1:15-18; 3:10-12; 4: 6-22; 
Titus 3:12, 13, as some of these fragments. It would 
give these messages much greater authority if they 
were ascribed to Paul, and the writer felt justified in 
doing this because parts were directly from the Apos- 
tle and the remainder was an urgently needed supple- 
ment to what Paul had written. 


2. Why May We Not Regard Paul as the Author of | 


These Letters? 
Five reasons may be briefly stated here. First, there 
is no place for them in the life of the Apostle. It would 
be necessary to assume that he was freed from prison 


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4 


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in Rome and travelled to Ephesus in order to provide © 


172 


‘ 
: 


THE LETTERS TO TIMOTHY AND TITUS 173 


a proper background for the epistles to Timothy and 
Titus. But there is no evidence for such an assump- 
tion, while there is abundant evidence to show that the 
epistles are not from the hand of Paul. 

Second, the teachings are different from Paul’s well- 
known doctrines. For example, faith, in these letters, 
means the creed of the church, but to Paul it always 
meant the act by which we are saved. Moreover, Paul 
was strongly opposed to the idea that salvation came 
by the works of the law, while I Timothy 6:18, 19, 
clearly teaches it. Paul was also opposed to marriage 
because he believed that the world was soon coming 
to an end, but these letters condemn those who forbid 
people to marry (I Timothy 4:3; 5: 14). 

Third, not only does the thought seem to belong to 
a much later time, but the literary style and words 
reveal a different authorship. There are nearly two 
hundred words in these three short letters which are 
not found in Paul’s recognized writings. 

Fourth, the letters are filled with opposition to heresy 
(I Timothy 4:1; Il Timothy 2:18; 3:8; 4:3; Titus 
3:9, 10) and allusions to the Gnostic sect (I Timothy 
1:4; 6:20; and Titus 3:9). This agrees with the be- 
liefs in Asia Minor in the second century, but not with 
those of the time of Paul. 

Fifth, most evident of all is the wide difference with 
respect to church government. These letters are largely 
concerned with lists of church officers and the quali- 
fications for such positions and the minute regulation 
of the duties of Christians (e. g., I Timothy 3: 1-13; 
Titus 1: 5-9). Great emphasis is placed on the author- 
ity of the church and its officers (Titus 1:3). This 
points to the first quarter of the second century as the 
time of writing. 


174 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


Such a state of things, it is true, seems a serious decline from 
the high, confident, spiritual enthusiasm of the Apostolic 
Age. But after the prophet must come the priest, to con- 
serve and codify the other’s work. And this was what the 
ey) to Timothy and Titus sought to do. (KE. J. Good- 
speed. 


3. Testimony to the Power of the Christian Move- 
ment. 


Heresy has been described as the result of the at- 
tempt to combine with Christianity beliefs which were 
not strong enough to compete with the Christian faith. 
These letters are filled with allusions to sects devoted 
to asceticism, theosophy, and Judaism, which were 
trying to fasten on to this powerful new faith in order 
to save themselves. Pliny’s letter to Trajan (about 112 
A. D.) shows that Christians had become so numerous 
that the heathen temples in Asia Minor were almost 
deserted. By the year 300 the strength of the Roman 
Empire had been won to Christ and Constantine 
thought it good political policy for the emperor to be- 
come a Christian. We should not be misled by the 
literary and doctrinal weakness of the last five letters 
of the New Testament into thinking that Christianity 
was becoming less efficient. 


4. Practical Value. 


We cannot tell who wrote these letters nor the place 
from which they issued. It is likely that either Rome 
or Ephesus was the centre from which such messages 
would issue. The author hides himself behind the great 
personality of Paul. He makes many practical sugges- 
tions. One of these is the need of personal leadership. 
Timothy and Titus, able disciples of Paul, are charged 
with important duties in the rapidly growing church. 


THE LETTERS TO TIMOTHY AND TITUS Wd 


Following them came a long line of leaders—Justin 
Martyr, Polycarp, Irenzus, Tertullian, Origen, and Au- 
gustine. Inspiration lives in men more than creeds and 
institutions. 

Yet creeds and constituted authority have their 
worth. They are the sign-posts of past attainment. 
They are the foundations for new progressive efforts. 
They are the standpoints with which we must become 
acquainted before we begin our strenuous labors for 
better institutions and loftier creeds. 

Many passages in these epistles are memorable for 
their vitality and power of inspiration. Note especially 
I Timothy 1:15; 3:16; 4:8; 4: 14-16; 6: 10-12; II 
Timothy 1:12; 3: 14-17; 4: 6-8; Titus 2: 11-14. 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 


Written Work 


. What situation in Asia Minor called for letters like Timothy 
and Titus? 

. In what sense were they Pauline? 

. Five reasons for thinking that Paul was not the author. 

. What is a heresy and what testimony do the heresies of Asia 
Minor in the second century bear to the power of Chris- 
tianity ? 

. Quote the best passage in these three letters, 


H GW DO — 


Cnr 


Oral Discussion 


1. What cities might compete for the honor of having produced 
these letters? 

2. Which is more important: correct creeds or competent per- 
sonal leadership ? 

3. What is the value of a creed? 


Special Assignments 


1. Compare the offices of prophet and priest, and classify under 
one of these heads the author of the letters to Timothy 
and Titus. 

2. Tell the romantic story of Timothy as recorded in Acts and 
referred to in Paul’s epistles. 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE TWO LATEST BOOKS OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT 


1. The Last of a Great Series. 


A little more than a hundred years after the Cruci- 
fixion, the books of Jude and II Peter brought to an 
end that great literary movement of which Christ was 
the inspiration. The records of the time show that the 
church fathers were reluctant to admit these little doc- 
uments into the list of sacred books. Eusebius, 325 
A. D., classed Jude among the “‘disputed”’ books, and 
II Peter had even greater opposition than Jude. 

The exact date is unknown, but it was evidently not 
far from the middle of the second century. Jude’s 
“stiff orthodoxy” (8:20) and his reference to the 
Apostles as belonging to the distant past (17), his allu- 
sion to a Christian saying as written “long ago” (4), 
and his use of the apocryphal books Enoch (11, 14) and 
the Assumption of Moses (9) point to a date well along 
in the second century. II Peter in his second chapter 
quotes nearly the whole of Jude, although he evidently 
has scruples against using the apocryphal books as 
authority and omits reference to them. We must, 
therefore, regard II Peter as the latest book in the 
Canon. Its reference to ‘‘ destructive sects” (2:1) and 
Jude’s allusion to “‘men who create division”’ (19) sug- 
gest the latest period of New Testament times. More- 
over, Jude’s emphasis on the “defense of the faith” 
(3), the “most holy faith” (20), and the importance of 

176 


THE TWO LATEST BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 177 


“authority” (8), along with II Peter’s high estimate of 
authority (2: 10, 11, 21; 3: 2), show the close affinity of 
these books with I and II Timothy and Titus. 


2. The Use of Assumed Names. 


It was a common custom in ancient times for authors 
to publish their writings under the name of some great 
man of old. It was not done to deceive, but to honor 
the memory of former leaders and to show what these 
great men would have taught under new and changed 
conditions. A writer of the last century before Christ 
called his book the Psalms of Solomon, and shortly be- 
fore that another author wrote under the name of 
Enoch. We have already seen that the books of James 
and I Peter were not written by those great leaders. 
It does not detract from the moral value of any book 
that it goes out under an assumed name. Jude and 
II Peter are not to be regarded as the work of James’s 
brother Jude or of the Apostle Peter just because their 
names are prefixed to the documents, nor should we 
entertain any prejudice against the contents because of 
the use of these pseudonyms. 


3. Contents of the Books. 


The author of Jude, probably resident in Asia Minor, 
was about to write a treatise on ‘‘Our Common §Sal- 
vation’’ when news came to him that persons who held 
loose theories about Christ and morality had “sneaked 
in” to a certain church. He hastens to warn such 
errorists by examples from the Old Testament and the 
Apocrypha. His language is strong and statements ex- 
treme. He urges the church to “build themselves up 
on the foundations of your most holy faith,” and if 
possible to snatch the errorists ‘‘out of the fire.” 


178 LITERATURE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 


The writer of II Peter urges his readers to grow in 
goodness and knowledge so that they may “be trium- 
phantly admitted into the eternal kingdom of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ (1: 1-11). The inspired 
message of the prophets (no prophecy ever originated 
with man but from the Holy Spirit) will be to the 
church ‘‘as a lamp shining in a dark place” (1: 12-21). 
False prophets will start sects supported by “pretended | 
arguments.”’ Quoting Jude, the writer asserts that 
these false teachers and their followers, who indulge in 
heresy and immorality, will, like the sinful angels of 
long ago, be cast into Tartarus (2: 1-22). He then dis- 
cusses the second coming of Christ (3: 1-18). 


4. Leading Ideas. 


(a) Condemnation of heretical teachers and immoral 
practices. These practices seem very prevalent in the 
churches and are condemned in harsh terms and with 
the warning of terrible judgments. 

(b) “Faith” has now clearly become the body of 
truth to be defended at all costs. Paul did not use faith 
in that sense; to him it was the act that saved a person. 

(c) The inspiration of Paul (II Peter 3:15, 16) and 
all true prophets (1: 20, 21) makes their words authori- 
tative for the church. 

(d) Respect for authority (Jude 8 and II Peter 2: 10, 
11, 21 and 3:2), especially of ancient leaders and 
books. Jude and II Peter do not claim it for them- 
selves. 

(e) The second coming of Christ is promised. II 
Peter expects a literal fulfilment of the old apocalyptic 
warnings (3: 10-13) which the Fourth Gospel inter- 
preted in a spiritual sense. 


ne wr me 


fuasl 


Oo RO to 


THE TWO LATEST BOOKS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT 179 


DIRECTIONS FOR STUDY 
Written Work 


. What books were among the last, if not the very last, to be 


received into the canon of the New Testament? 


. What was the approximate date of these two writings? 
. What apocryphal books are quoted in Jude as though they 


were recognized authorities? 


. What was the aim of Jude? 


What doctrine seems most important in II Peter? 


Oral Discussion 


. What was Jude about to do when his attention was called to 


a certain heresy? 


. Show that Jude was greatly interested in severe judgments 


recorded in ancient documents. 

What kind of persons does he describe in 12, 13? 

To whom probably does he refer in verse 19 who ‘‘create 
division”’? 


. To what event does II Peter 1: 16-18 allude? 
. Meaning of II Peter 1:19, “until the day dawns.” 


Special Assignments 


. Compare Jude and II Peter, chapter 2, and underline the 


parallel words and phrases. 


2. Read and report to the class an article on the “‘ Canon of the 


New Testament.”’ Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 : 872-878. 


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APPENDIX 


I 
REFERENCE BOOKS 


Peake, A. 8., A Critical Introduction to the New Testament. New 
York: Scribners, 1911. 

Goodspeed, The Story of the New Testament. Chicago: The Uni- 
versity of Chicago Press, 1916. 

Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, in one volume. New York: 
Scribners, 1909. 
Soden, H. Von, The History of Early Christian Literature: The 
Writings of the New Testament. New York: Putnam, 1906. 
vat ARE The Origin of the New Testament. New York: Har- 
per, 1909. 

Burton, E. D., Short Introduction to the Gospels. Chicago: The 
University of Chicago Press, 1904. 

Stevens and Burton, A Harmony of the Gospels. New York: 
Seribners, 1904. 

Hunting, The Story of Our Bible. New York: Scribners, 1915. 

Encyclopedia Britannica. In this there is a good article on each 
Biblical book. 

Smyth, J. P., The Story of St. Paul’s Life and Letters. New 
York: James Pott, 1917. 

Kent, C. F., The Work and Teachings of the Apostles. New York: 
Scribners, 1916. 

Rauschenbusch, The Social Principles of Jesus. New York: 
Association Press, 1917. 

Gilbert, A Short History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. 
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1907. 

Bra A. B., The Parabolic Teaching of Christ. New York: 

oran. 

Miller, E. R., The Dramatization of Bible Stories. Chicago: The 
University of Chicago Press, 1918. 

Ropes, J. H., Critical Commentary on the Epistle of St. James. 
New York: Scribners, 1916. 

Box, G. H., New Century Bible on St. Matthew. Edinburgh: Ox- 
ford University Press, 1922. 

Bartlet, J. V., New Century Bible on St. Mark. Edinburgh: Ox- 
ford University Press, 1922 


181 


182 APPENDIX 


Adeney, W. F., New Century Bible on St. Luke. Edinburgh: Ox- 
ford University Press, 1922. 

Horton, R. F., The Cartoons of Mark. New York: Revell, 1894. 

Barton, G. A., Jesus of Nazareth. New York: Macmillan, 1922. 

Scott, E. F., The Ethical Teachings of Jesus. New York: Mac- 
millan, 1924. 

Scott, E. F., The Historical and Religious Value of the Fourth Gos- 
pel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1909. 

Gilbert, G. H., Acts. (The Bible for Home and School.) New York: 
Macmillan, 1908. 

Porter, F. C., Messages of the Apocalyptic Writers. New York: 
Scribners, 1905. 

Goodspeed, E. J., Hebrews. (The Bible for Home and School.) 
New York: Macmillan, 1908. 


APPENDIX 


INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 


Abraham, 146 

Acts, 111-115 

sop, 91 

Africa, 170 

Allen, J. L., 54 

Andrew, 3 

Antioch, 22 

Antonia, Castle of, 44 
Apocalypse, 116 

Apocalyptic expectation, 161 
Apollo, 31 

Arabian Nights, 91 

Arabic Tale of the Merchant, 91 
Aramaic, 2, 7, 8, 75 

Armor, 48 

Art, 105 

Assumption of Moses, 121, 176 
Athens, 53 


Babylon (Rome), 119 
Baptism, 69 

Barnabas, 62 

Barton, G. A., 11 

Beast (of Revelation), 119 
Beauty, Religious value of, 109 
Beethoven, 164 
Benedictus, 107 

Bithynia, 130, 131 
Brown, C. R., 80 
Browning, Robert, 52 
Bruce, A. B., 92 

Burkitt, F. G., 66 


Cable, G. W., 136 
Czsarea, 44, 140, 141 


hoon of New Testament, 176, 
9 

Capernaum, 69 

Carlyle, Thomas, 117 
Catacomb, 69 

Choir Invisible, 54 

Christ, the living, 160 
Cicero, 2 

Clement of ca 125, 126 
Coleridge, S. T., 

Colossee, 145 

Colossians, 46 

Comforter, the, 161 
Constantine, 174 

Corinth, 33, 34 
Corinthians, I, 28-35 
Corinthians, I, 34-38 
Cornelius, 111 

Creeds, 175 

Cyprus, 62 


Damascus, 52 

Daniel, 120 

De Quincey, Thomas, 92 

Diatribe, 138, 139 

Dickens, Charles, 89 

Divinity in man, 163 

Docetism, 166 

Domitian, 166 

Domitilla, 124 

ape of Fourth Gospel, 152- 

Drama of Revelation, 119, 120 

Dramatization of Bible Stories, 
108, 109 


183 


184 


Drummond, Henry, 46, 170 
Dryden, 14 


Ecclesiastes, 136, 138 

Eliot, George, 103 

Enoch, Book of, 121, 133, 176, 
177 

Epaphroditus, 51 — 

Epaphros, 46 

Ephesians, Letter to the, 47, 48 

Ephesus, 144, 166, 167, 174 

Eternal Goodness, 37 

Eternal life, 147, 150 

Eusebius, 98, 138, 176 

Ezekiel, 121 


ioe sia in the church, 30, 31, 

171 

Faith, usage of, 100, 172, 173, 
178 

Faust, 41 

Flavius Clemens, 124 

Fourth Gospel, 141-164 

Fra, Angelico, 106 


Galahad, 48 

Galatians, 22-27 
Gamaliel, 114 

Gardiner, 32 

Gentiles, 44 

Gethsemane, 60, 63 
Gloria in Excelsis, 107 
Gnosticism, 166, 171 
Goethe, 41 

Good Samaritan, 108, 109 
Goodspeed, E. J., 123, 131, 174 
Gosse, Edmund, 123 
Grace, usage of, 100 


Handel’s Messiah, 164 

Harte, Bret, 108 

Hawthorne, N., 134 

Hay, John, 170 

Hearn, Lafcadio, 116 
Hebrews, Book of, 123 
Heresy, 143, 144, 169, 173, 174 
Herod, 101 


APPENDIX 


Herod Antipas, 70 

Herodians, 70 

Hillis, N. D., 89 

Hoffmann, 106 

Holtzmann, 169 

Holy Fire, 3 

Holy Night, 107 

Holy Spirit, usage of, 100, 161 
Homer, 2 

Hope, 129, 134 

Horace, 2 

Horns of Hattin, 83 

Horton, R. F., 35, 111, 159, 168 
Hunt, Holman, 59, 106 
Hunting, H. B., 60, 68, 160, 161 


Irenzeus, 131 
Italy, 124 


Jacks, L. P., 162 

James, 4 

James, Book of, 186-142 

Jerome, 138 

Jerusalem, 44, 53, 55, 162 

Jewish - Alexandrian _ philoso- 
phy, 126 

Jews, 105 

John the Baptist, 69, 146 

John the beloved disciple, 145 

John, the Guspel of, 141-164 

John, the Letters of, 166-171 

John the Presbyter or Elder, 
117, 145, 167, 169 

Judaism, 126, 174 

Jude, 121 

Jude, Bock of, 176-179 


Kean, Edmund, 89 

Kent, C. F., 104, 171 
King, H. C., 79 

Kingdom of God, 146, 148 


Lamb of God, 146 
Law of Moses, 24, 173 
Legend Beautiful, 26 
Lerolle, 106 
Letter-writing, 18 


APPENDIX 


Lewis, F. G., 34 

Life in a Love, 52 

Livingstone, David, 170 

Logia, 8 

Logos, 145, 146, 162 

Longfellow, H. W., 26 

Lord’s Prayer, 9, 81 

Lost Radiance of the Christian 
Religion, 162, 163 

Lost Sheep, 93 

Love, 32, 86, 87, 168, 170 

Luck of Roaring Camp, 108 

Luke, Gospel of, 57, 96 

Luke the Greek Physician, 96, 
97, 98, 105 

Luke’s Diary, 113 

Luther, Martin, 139 

Lydia, 36 


Maclaren, Jan, 79 
Magnificat, 107 

Mark, Gospel of, 56, 66, 68 
Mark, John, 12, 13, 15, 60, 61 
Martin, G. C., 159 

Mass in D Major, 164 
Matthew, Apostle, 7, 8 
Matthew, Gospel of, 56, 73 
Messiah, 2, 119, 145, 146, 152 
Miller, EK. R., 108 
Mohammedan Bible, 31 
Moulton, R. G., 80 

Mustard seed, 93 


Napoleon, 164 

Neesima, Joseph, 159 
Nero, 124, 125 
Nicodemus, 146, 150, 153 
Noah, 133 

Nunc Dimittis, 107 


O Little Town of Bethlehem, 107 
Onesimus, 45 

Outcasts of Poker Flat, 108 
Oxyrhynchus, 6 


Papias, 4, 8, 12, 63 
Papyrus, 6 


185 


Parables, 76, 89-94 
Parthenon, 53 

Passion Week, 57 

Patmos, 117 

pi 17, 18, 24, 28, 39, 60, 61, 


Pentecost, 114 

Perean Ministry, 57 

Peter, 3, 4, 15, 114, 157 
Peter, I, Book of, 129-134 
Peter, II, Book of, 176-179 
Pharisees, 70 

Phidias, 89 

Philemon, Letter to, 45 
Philippi, 36, 97 
Philippians, Letter to the, 50 
Philo, 126 

Plato, 2, 17 

Pliny, 131, 182, 174 
Prayer, 102, 103 

Priscilla, 29, 69 

Prodigal Son, 89, 91, 92 
Proverbs, 138 

Psalms of Solomon, 177 
Pudens, 69 

Purgatory, 134 


Rabbi Ben Ezra, 85 

Rauschenbusch, Walter, 25 

Renan, Ernest, 113 

Return of Christ, 160, 161, 178 

Revelation, Book of, 116-122 

Roman Catholic Christianity, 
69 

Romans, Letter to the, 39-43 

Rome, 138, 112 

Ropes, J. H., 139 

Rossetti, 106 

Ruskin, John, 63, 117 


Sadducees, 70 

Sardinia, 124 

Scott, E. F., 148, 159 

Sea of Galilee, 82 

Septuagint, 1, 2 

Sermon on the Mount, 42, 48, 
76, 79-88 


186 


Silas, 97 

Simeon, 99 

Singon Street, 73 

Smith, G. A., 87 

Smyrna, 117 

Smyth, J. P., 54 

Socrates, 17 

Son of God, 147, 148, 150, 151 
Sower, Parable of, 93 

Spain, 39 

Spirit of truth, 161 

Stephen, 111, 114 

Stones of Venice, 63, 64 
Stories of Luke, 107 
Stradivarius, 103 

Synoptic Gospels, 57, 147, 148 


Tares, Parable of, 93 

Tarsus, University of, 96 
Tennyson, Alfred, 86 

Tertius, 19 

Theophilus, 96, 113 
Theosophy, 174 
Thessalonians, I and II, 19, 20 


APPENDIX 


Tiberias, 101 

Timothy, 97, 124: 

Timothy, Letters to, 172-175 
Titus, 36 

Titus, Letter to, 172-175 
Toiling of Felix, 6 

Trajan, 132 

Troas, 97 

Tychicus, 47 


Van Dyke, Henry, 6 

Venice, 63 

Virgil, 2 

Virgin Mary, 105 

gous Soden, Hermann, 36, 53, 
51 


‘Votaw, C. W., 79 


Whittier, J. G., 37 
Wild, Laura, 23 
Wisdom sayings, 81 
Word (Logos), 145, 146 


Zion, 53 





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